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•ose C. Fulton**5 TuJK to iHe^ ^i-oV 
itkty Pioneer iSettJer*^' Asso<;"riAtun/ 
.especting Son>.e of Ifitt AcA?^. 
and His Experiences Iluriicig. 
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A PORTION OF A LIFE'S VOYAGE. ~^/i^'^^ 



AMBROSE c. Fulton's talk and report to the scott 

COUNTY PIONEER SETTLERS. 

Mr. President^ Ladies ajid Gentle7nen of the Forty Fifth 
Anmial Festival of the Scott County Pioneer Association: 

Good ancients, 3'ou by resolution requested me to pub- 
lish my talks and acts. I here perform the task. 

Our meetings are as a family meeting to plainly talk 
over the long past; an act that cannot be performed by 
others. No substitute can fill the cast. 

Our president, Mr. Jessie Armil, has given us an interest- 
ing history of his protracted journey from civilization to 
the then late home of the Indian. His landing here at 
Brimstone Corner, his log cabin days, and the opening up 
of a farm where the wild deer and the wolf roamed, to in 
time possess a store-house of wheat and corn, but no mill to 
grind it until I came from the sea to erect them. 

Judge Brannan has, in his masterly address, given us 
the early history of our once Louisiana, and traced it down 
to its state of Iowa. 

To possess the capacity to store up history, and the 
quintessence of the arts and sciences, and the intellect of 
the wise and great, and the ability to impart this knowl- 
edge to others is of far greater value than are the mines of 
Ophir, where this da}^, 1901, Great Britain is copiously 
shedding warm, smoking human blood for Empire. 

The gold of the mountains, the pearls of the ocean, and 
the silver of the mines, are but dross when compared with 
intellect; for intellect approaches divinity. 

Cicero was a wise man — a great man. He hid himself 
in a coal cellar and filled his head with knowledge. I ad- 
vise all to imitate Cicero. 

I have this day, and constantly previous!}^, been solicited 
to name occurences and individual acts of the distant past. 

I 1^ ■ 



In speaking of an ever active life during near a century, 
it will be necessary to cut all down to the verge of destruc- 
tion, for a multiplicity of events sufficient to bewilder the 
imagination could be laid before you. 

Many members of this association have given the people 
of a new world useful lessons of the distant past, and every 
speaker has added an interesting line to history, and old 
Sailor, I, without any more preliminary talk, will give a 
small portion of the scenes and acts of my past that may 
add a line to history. 

We do not assemble here to speak of the performances 
of others, of General Grant, or the Duke of Wellington, 
but to tell of the number of acres of land we plowed and 
the number of Indian scalps we took. 

At this day, many slumber on downy couches, and feast 
on rare luxuries, thoughtless of the pilgrims of Plymouth 
Rock, and of the frontier pioneers, who suffered hardships 
and privations, even unto death, to procure those blessings 
for a coming people, and enable them to rest at ease and 
secure beneath the folds of an unsullied flag. 

The pioneers laid the foundation and created the State, 
the County and the City laws, through vast work, and 
built up a finished world in a wilderness, for the profit and 
comfort of a coming people. 

The real pioneers of Scott county, who faced the hard- 
ships and privations of Territorial days, by my count now 
number but nineteen, and soon, very soon, this small rem- 
nant must sink beneath the horizon of time to join their 
co-workers on eternity's vast sea, and naught will remain 
save a second generation and pioneers through marriage, 
who should have been known as honorary members and 
avoid the confusion that is sure to arise. The second gen- 
eration knew but few hardships. They had a father's and 
a mother's care in their 3^oung days. I do not count my 
children, born here in early Territorial days, as pioneers for 
they are not, and should I be the last survivor of the real pio- 



neers, I here will the gold mounted cane, the ancient sceptre 
of the order, to the Davenport Academy of Science, 

I have associated and worked with Revolutionary sol- 
diers, and heard them rehearse the horrors of that day, 
and also those of the Whiskc}^ wars of 1794 and 1799, and 
those of our short war at sea with France, which com- 
menced in 1798 and was brought to a close by Napoleon 
the first, in 1799, in which we showed our superiority. I 
have associated with our soldiers of 181 2, and those of 
Napoleon the First, and the Duke of Wellington in Spain, 
and also those of Napoleon the Third; and have sailed 
with sailors and mariners of our war of 181 2, and with 
with those of our war with the Dey of Algiers in 181 4, 
and obtained from them unwritten but interesting and 
important history, which now flashes before my mind as 
streaks of vivid lightning. 

I never was a boy. I threw off my homespun infant 
slip to step on the stage of active life to deal with men and 
harness the wind. 

I never smoked a cigar or used the smallest portion of 
tobacco in my life. I never claimed my portion of intoxi- 
cating drink. For one period of twenty-five years, and 
during the last ten years I did not, have not tasted a sin- 
gle drop of wine, beer or any kind of alcoholic drink. My 
weaker mother and sisters did not require it. 

Wisdom told me at an early age to not drink distilled 
drink from rotten mash, or half rotten malt, but to drink 
the pure water of the river, the running brook, and the 
cistern water that was distilled in God's distillery in the 
sky. 

Those who have to contribute their money and health 
to pay a mulct tax are abject slaves. Those who drink 
from God's pure fountain are free men, no corruption 
courses in their veins to contaminate their brain. 




THE LIQUOR TRAFFIC. 

I was the mover by ordinance in the Council and the 
sole advocate to endeavor to check the liquor traffic by 
placing a license of two hundred dollars on each saloon, 
which was done by a majority of one, but not long to lin- 
ger. It was cut down to fifty dollars by foreign Ameri- 
cans. 

In the early years of the past century, when our moth- 
made*our clothing, spun the wobl and mjfde our stock- 
ings, we had no strikers to bring distress on their families 
and injure whole communities. We had very few paupers 
and no anarchists, and most all the people then owned 
their homes. But many things have changed since George 
III. was king, and Madison was president. 

In the neck of primitive woods where I resided in 1821, 
all the inhabitants, men, women and children, went al- 
most insane over the question of superior power and abil- 
ity. Athletic contests, fox, coon and wildcat hunting, 
spelling schools, and corn husking contests numbered with 
many others. 

It is natural in man to desire to excel his fellowman. 
Some build fast boats, and some sail to the frozen zone 
hunting for the North Pole. The contagion seized on me 
severely, and I there and then resolved to enter into not 
less than half a century's constant and hard training in 
every branch of learning, embracing the sciences, mechan- 
ics, and all useful arts, so as to be able to challenge with 
confidence any man in the world, and although I possessed 
less than twenty dollars, I placed the stake to be contend- 
ed for at not less than fifty thousand dollars. The sum 
won to be given to the poor. 

I earned the fifty thousand dollar stake and over in far 
less time, and with less trouble than I had anticipated. Oh 
how long and hard have I worked and trained for the as- 
cendency in the contest. 

In the early twenties of the last century, I procured a 
berth in the order department of an extensive building 



firm. A valuable school for useful knowledge. 

I feared my opponent might be a navigator or a soldier, 
so I procured by purchase and by charter works on Cheni- 
istr}^, Astronomy, Ancient and Modern History and other 
works, and early went to sea as a sailor, and on the battle 
field of Mexico as a soldier, and for scientific knowledge 
and business, I crossed diagonally over the Alleghenies 
and the Sierre Madre Mountains twice, and went aloft of 
the topmost peak of the Andes. 

During twelve years I saw no ice or snow save off Cape 
Horn and on the mountain summit. To rehearse ni}^ ad- 
ventures at sea would consume the balance of this day and 
the coming night. 

I do not pose before you as a relic of the past, nor do I 
name acts and work to boast, but merely as facts, as I 
might say, I cast anchor in a bay, or sailed a boat on the 
heaving bosom of the sea. 

In connection with other studies, I had studied Architec- 
ture and in the early thirties, when I left the sea, I en- 
tered into the building business in New Orleans. I, as 
contractor and as owner, erected so large a number of 
buildings, that without time to calculate, I cannot here 
count them. 

I, in New Orleans, erected for myself eight fair dwell- 
ing houses, one warehouse and one store. In my work for 
others, I erected on Magazine Street, in New Orleans, 
what was known as the Arcade that cost over one hun- 
dred thousand dollars. Our veteran citizen, Mr. A. F. 
Mast, can knowingly give you the history and extent of 
this edifice. Within its extensive Exchange Hall, I have 
seen two auctioneers selling African slaves at the same 
time. 

I erected a cotton press just at the change of times, that 
cost over eighty thousand dollars, and I lost one payment 
of eleven thousand dollars, with two dollars and a half 
($2.50) cost of protest added. Here I exhibit to you the 
ancient obligation, dated 1837. This eleven thousand dol- 



lars at that da}^ was equal to one hundred thousand at this 
day. And here is the promissory note of the once big im- 
porting firm of Reese and DeLange, of Camp Street, New 
Orleans, for the sum of $202.97, paid and protested by old 
Sailor I, in 1839. 

I here hold in my hand three small building contracts 
that happen to be preserved out of many. They are dated 
New Orleans 1841 and 1842, consideration $20,000, about 
one half of the cost of the same work at this day. No 
eight hour pauper time at that day. 

Those ancient contracts and their specifications will 
teach a lesson to the builders of this day, 1901. 

I had building contracts with the city, the parish, and 
the state of Louisiana. The history too lengthy here to 
name. 

I must here run off my course to say I had gangs of 
negro slaves, who hired their time from their masters, who 
were skilled workmen in every branch of building, espec- 
ially brick layers, who, as all round workmen, were su- 
perior to the whites of this city, and on visits to that city 
in later years, I found ex-slaves, and other negroes as 
large contractors. I know for I trained in all things be- 
neath and above the clouds for the ascendency in all 
knowledge, and I am now training. 

I here exhibit to you five deeds for land purchased by 
me in New Orleans, which I happen to preserve out of 
many, most of them having been handed over to purchas- 
ers. 

The consideration of one is $9,000, recorded in 1836, also 
a like deed, consideration $1,400, recorded in 1837, also 
one for $880, recorded in 1839, ^^^^ c>ne, the consider- 
ation is $2,300, recorded in 1839, ^^^ ^^^^ ^^^ consider- 
ation is $5,450, recorded in 1839. '^^^^ sixth is worthy of 
note. It is issued by George Louis Gilbert Demottier La- 
fayette, a member of the Chamber of Deputies, residing in 
the kingdom of France, and obtained by inheritance from 
his father. Major General Lafayette, and Madam Francoise 



Bmilie Destutt de Tracy, parts with all lier matrimonial 
dotal praphernal rights. 

It is known to very few of our here mongrel population, 
that the United States, as a compliment, voted General 
Lafa3^ette lands in Florida and Louisiana, for which a pat- 
ent was issued by President J. O. Adams on the Fourth 
day of July, 1825, and I purchased a portion of the Louis- 
iana land. In 1824 I called on the renowned General 
L-afayette to thank him for his arduous services rendered 
to our America. 

In 1S39, I purchased two tracts of land, embracing 160 
acres each, in Ohio, as records witness. I purchased and 
paid for land as early as 1834, and as early as 1831, with 
others, chartered the ponderous towboat of the Gulf of 
Mexico, the Grampus. 

I never received one dollar that I did not earn. I even 
bestowed my inheritance to others. 

In 1840, the city of New Orleans levied a special, or 
frontage tax of $306.40 against some of my property. I 
felt that one-half of the claim was unjust. Suit was entered 
against me by the city. 

At that day we w^ere virtually under the Code Napoleon, 
as we had stipulated with France in her sale of Louisiana 
to us in 1803, that all laws then in force should remain so 
up to 1833, and many of them were then in force. Those 
laws were created for the Empire, the Territory, not the 
people. 

I called on two different attorneys of merit to defend 
me. Both were willing, but both told me that under my 
own showing I had no hope of a decree in my favor. I 
could not see it in that light, and although my limit to 
answer was reduced to twenty-four hours, I drew up and 
for the first time in my life entered the inside of a Court 
House and filed my petition, but I had been the judge of a 
court on the ocean to condemn to death. 

Soon I personally met the long experienced City Attor- 
ney, Mr. Rawl, at the bar of justice, and obtained a de- 



cree as I prayed for. To not check the city's progress, I 
proposed to pay the city the just half of this claim, which 
the Cit}^ Council accepted. I here present to you the ad- 
justed bill dated New Orleans, Feb. 24th, 1840. Those of 
you who desire can see those ancient, but perfect papers at 
my office. 

I could not have been a very old man in 1836, when I 
earned and paid the $9,000, yet I was on deck and in com- 
mand, and had been there seven years previously. 

In 1838, 1 sailed from New Orleans to Charleston, thence 
to New York City, then I traveled inland from New York 
City through New Jersey, a portion of Pennsylvania, over 
the Alleghenies diagonally, through a portion of Virginia, 
thence through Ohio, Indiana, Illinois to' St. Louis, Mis- 
souri. I halted at the then capitol of the State of Illinois, 
at Vandalia, on the Kaskaskia river, to see and hear the 
process of law making, as the State Legislature w^as in 
session. I there purchased 160 acres of land from Uncle 
Sam, a few miles south of the capitol. 

I took steamboat at St. Louis for New Orleans. She 
was snagged and sunk on the lower Mississippi. One 
lady, a cabin passenger, was drowned, two injured and the 
balance of us, over one hundred, were only water-soaked. 
In the thirties, I united and placed a small sum of money 
with several big men of wealth and standing and established 
a journal, the True American, in New Orleans. After 
placing their big money, and employing a learned editor, 
a Mr. John Gibbons, they concluded that their work ended. 
Some went to Europe, and others went to their plantations 
and left their journal to run wild without a compass or a 
rudder. 

One instance I must name. I had been all day hoisting 
heavy timbers on to a building with twelve negro slaves 
that I employed; an official from the American office called 
on me and said that the editor-in- chief had taken an over- 
dose of brandy punch and that he had pledged the editor of 
the Bee to pitch into him in his next number. I informed 



the distressed caller that I was well posted on the subject, 
and with the permission of all hands, I would do the "pitch- 
ing in," which I did. 

I was greatly pleased with the next number of the "Bee," 
a journal published in French and English, for its renowned 
editor, who stood high in the ranks of the professional 
writers, under a conspicuous heading, pronounced my ed- 
itorial to be a lumber yard of literature. This gave me 
an opening and I brought to my mind many telling words 
from Webster, and framed them according to Murray, and 
I went at the eminent editor with the acute end of vengeance, 
and according to my vision, I took the hide off the widely 
known and talented editor, and hung it on a thorn bush. 

When my high-minded opponent of the "Bee" learned 
that a sailor had given him the telling blows, he grew 
moody and threatened to commit suicide, but his friends 
persuaded him not to act rashly on account of a bronzed 
and hard-handed sailor. 

ASPIRED TO BE A THESPIAN. 

In my early days training, I had to appear on the stage 
as an actor, and I advanced to a point wherein I became one 
of the proprietors of the grand marble structure, the ancient 
Arch Street theatre of Philadelphia (see edifice records). 

When common judgment told me that whilst I might 
rate as a number one sailor, or perhaps a captain, I 
would linger below zero and waste my life as an actor, and 
I returned to the sea, the sailor's Alma Mater. 

I will pass over a world of work and adventure; some of 
which, in tragedy, are almost beyond belief, to tell you 
that I shipped from New Orleans and arrived here at Dav- 
enport, after a change of boats, on the Steamer Agness, 
Captain Wood, on the Fourth of July, 1842, and during 
sixty years next Fourth of July, I have camped here on 
the renowned Black Hawk's hunting ground. 



lO 

EARLY ACTS. 

Governor Edwards and Aguste Choteau made the first 
treaty with the Sacs and Foxes of this vicinit}^ in 1815, 
which treaty Black Hawk pronounced a fraud, claiming 
that they picked up and induced Indians to negotiate that 
had no authority to act. In 1823, ^^'^'^ one-half of the two 
tribes under Keokuk broke camp on Rock River and the 
vicinity of Rock Island, and moved over the river into 
Iowa. The first lands in Rock Island county were brought 
into market in 1829. 

A company was formed in 1835 to lay off the town of 
Davenport. The survey- was made in the spring of 1836. 
The first house built after the survey was a log house at 
Third and Ripley streets. This house became Davenport's 
second store building. 

In 1836, Wisconsin was organized as a territory, of which 
Iowa was a portion. Its legislature met that year. Its 
first session was held at Belmont, and Iowa was by it divided 
into two counties by a line beginning at Rock Island and 
extending west to the Missouri river. The north portion 
was called Dubuque county. The south portion was called 
Des Moines county. Davenport was in two counties. 
This year, 1836, Mr. A. LeClaire was appointed postmaster 
by Uncle Sam, and had a weekly mail from the East, and 
every two weeks from Dubuque. Postage on all letters 
during the first year was seventy-five cents, then reduced 
to the regular rate of twenty-five cents. The first relig- 
ious discourse and public prayer was delivered in a dwell- 
ing b}' Rev. Air. Gavitt, a Methodist. The first case of 
matrimou}' in Scott Count}^ took place in Davenport, in 
1837. One of the contracting parties was a Mr. Wm. B. 
Watts^ and the other a niece of A. LeClaire, a native of 
the far west. 

It is now over sevent}^ years since I entered the Missis- 
sippi River from off the Atlantic Ocean under adverse cir- 
cumstances, having placed some of my shipmates beneath 
the ocean waves. 



II 

I brought here a cargo of assorted goods, suited to the 
white man and the Indian too. That Captain Wood said 
it was the largest tonnage, and largest pay that he had 
received from one man on the upper Mississippi. 

I immediately purchased a piece of ground, 128 feet by 
150 feet, at the northeast corner of now Second, once Sac 
Street, and Rock Island streets, for $1,200, from a Potto- 
wottomie Indian. I erected the two story brick store and 
dwelling, which now stands in perfect trim and will stand 
to meet the storms of time when more recent structures 
crumble into dust. I also, then in 1842, erected a brick 
warehouse east of it, now removed. The upper iioor of 
this warehouse was the first Odd Fellow's Hall, and the 
first Free Mason's Lodge in Scott County, and the first 
brick sidewalk within this city was at that corner placed. 

In the spring of 1843, ^ erected the three dwellings that 
stand north of this corner for my coopers, and my cooper 
shop on the same tract of land, where I made barrels and 
tierces for my pork packing house at the since Armour 
stand at Front and Perry streets. 

In the fall of 1842, in passing up the river on the Iowa 
shore side of the upper rapids, I immediately saw that a 
vast water power there waited development. I immediately 
made a survey, took the levels, upon which I purchased, 
at large cost, the river front of several farms for canal way, 
and marine walls outside, and purchased the island south 
of Sycamore chain, as it was essential in the construction. 
This island is now recorded on the government river maps, 
and within the Iowa state geology reports as Fulton's Island. 
For cost and extent of purchase, see Scott county records 
of 1842 and 1843. '^^ s^ipply the vast quantity of lumber 
that I expected to use in the works, I purchased 160 acres 
of good timber on the Illinois side of the Mississippi. 

I sold the water power, the Iowa lands and the Island to 
New York parties, at a discount, in consideration of their 
completing the work, but the big mone3'ed man of the three 
was struck by a tidal wave and went under, and nature 



12 

there reigns supreme, no water power improvement. 

Iowa had her Black Hills and her Oklahoma days of 
thrilling events, but too lengthy here to rehearse. 

Whilst I was securing the possession of the Mississippi's 
vast water power in the fall of 1842, I took a half interest 
with a Mr. William Bennett in a land claim that he had 
built his claim house on, in Buchanan County, Iowa, and 
which embraced the falls of the Wapsipincon River. We 
with great risk and labor placed a dam at the falls, and 
built the ordinary country grist mill, of a cheap order, and 
also built a warehouse and a blacksmith shop. We hoped 
there to build up the Metropolis of the West. 

When I first visited Buchanan County, the population 
of the county numbered nine, all residing in, or near, our 
town of Quasqueton. 

When our mill was completed, there was not one bushel 
of wheat within twenty miles of it to test it with. The 
adventure became widely known, and adventurers from 
many quarters flocked in, and for a season it was the horse 
thieves' Mecca, and the embezzlers' Paradise, and land 
claim contentions took place and some were adjusted by 
the rifle, out of court. 

One of our workmen, Oscar Day, was shot down on the 
open prairie by the claim jumper. Big Bill of Michigan, to 
obtain his quarter section of land, and his log house with 
split log floors, and split clapboard doors, and one four light 
window; a domicile prepared for his spouse, a worthy farm- 
er's daughter near Dubuque. 

Amongst the new comers of 1842 was the counterfeit 
Johnson, who claimed to be the far-famed Canadian patriot 
Johnson. He brought with him a young and intelligent 
French woman, who was born and raised on one of the 
thousand islands of the St. Lawrence, and was known on 
the Islands and in Buchanan County, Iowa, as the Wild 
Girl of the Thousand Islands. She was married to John- 
son on the island by a converted Indian, whom the Catholic 



13 

missionaries ordained with anthority to unite members of 
his tribe in marriage. 

Jdhnson was wanted in Canada, and in Northern New 
York to answer to many crimes. He stole some of my 
partner Bennett's cattle and sold them in Dubuque. Mr. 
Bennett went a gunning for Johnson and laid him up, and 
to escape the Dubuque prison, Mr. Bennett fled to his once 
home in the tall timber of Michigan. We were at that 
time judicially united with Dubuque County. 

The government on the 13th of March, 1843, P^^t up the 
Buchanan lands at auction in the town of Marion, in Lynn 
County, and many contentions for possession of land took 
place there. My genuine frontier partner, Mr. Bennett, 
who was the first settler in Delaware County, and the first 
in Buchanan County, was a fugitive, and the whole com- 
munity centured him for punishing the patriot Johnson. 
I attended the Government land sale at Marion to find that 
a combination was formed to purchase our land, buildings, 
waterpower and our town of Quasqueton. 

This combination consisted of a Mr. Rolson Green, the 
patriot Johnson, and the moneyed man of the combine was 
Surveyor General George W. Jones of Dubuque, who had 
represented the territories of Michigan, Wisconsin, and 
Iowa in Congress, and was a rebel in 1861, and the only 
man in Iowa arrested as such. 

On the first day's sale our Quasqueton land was reached 
and knocked down to the hero Johnson at $10 per acre. 
Mr. Jones was not willing to pay that large price. The 
Government ofiicials felt that they had been trifled with 
and that portion was laid over until the next day's sale. 
In the interval, I compromised with Johnson and Green, 
a lawyer, a Mr. Green, who in time became Iowa's Judge 
Green of Cedar Rapids. Lawyer Green drew up an iron- 
clad bond that bound me to pay Johnson money, and to 
deed Rolson Green one eighth of the mill and water pow- 
er, and certain town lots, if I became the purchaser of the 
land. I soon found that I had been taken in b}^ both 



14 

Green and Johnson. After the sale and I was not the pur- 
chaser, bnt my younger brother, E. R. Fulton, of Penn- 
sylvania was, they talked powder and daggers, but used 
none. I had been there before. 

B. R. Fulton's power of attorney to A. C. Fulton to sell 
those lands is recorded in Book ii, Page 290, and A. C. 
Fulton, at the request of Mr. Bennett, deeded to William 
W. Hadding the land and town of Quasqueton for a mere 
bagatelle. This deed was executed on Feb. 3, 1844, and 
recorded in Book 11, Page 291, Buchanan County records. 

In the winter of 1843, word reached Quasqueton that 
Johnson was an impostor and a fugitive from justice. His 
late friends became his indignant enemies, and ordered 
him to depart from the county. No longer the paragon 
of greatness, he departed in the night, and took up his 
quarters in a deserted woodman's hut in the bottom tim- 
ber of Skunk River. He had been in his new quarters 
but a short time when a hunter by the name of Peck, the 
terror of Skunk River, in the dark of the evening shot 
him to death whilst seated before a log fire in his cabin 
smoking a corn cob pipe, and the wild girl, who had 
swayed the community of Buchanan County, as does the 
moon sway the tide, passed a long and dreary- night, far 
from any habitation, in a cabin with a corpse. 

Iowa had her Black Hills and her Oklahoma days. 

In the winter of 1842, the Sac and Fox Indians were 
camped just over the Indian line of 1837, some five miles 
northwest of our mill. On one of my journeys to Daven- 
port, I concluded to visit the Indian camp and purchase 
their furs. After leaving their camp near night, a snow 
storm set in and then soon followed far below zero weath- 
er. I lost my bearings, no sun by day or stars by night 
to guide my course. I drifted over a vast prairie ocean, 
without rations during two nights and near three days. I 
dare not make headway at night, and my poor horses 
browsed on bushes that stood above the drifting snow, and 
had it not been for the plurality of my lives, I should have 
ceased to exist. 



15 

The first night passed without a star to guide my course; 
the morning came but brought no hope to me; the second 
night set in with utter darkness surrounding me; the dawn 
of the third day exhibited no habitation, but a vast snow- 
chid plain extended beyond my vision in every quarter. 
The third dismal night rushed upon me. With a far be- 
low zero coldness. 

Fortunately I saw a light in the window of a lone log 
house, in a small unnamed grove. The pioneer was Jas. 
Laughrey. The good Madam Laughrey gave me a 
bucket of fresh spring water to place ni}^ frozen feet in, 
and placed raw, pounded up onions to my frozen ears, in 
part consideration of which, I then and there named the 
grove Onion Grove, the name it now retains. My two 
Canadian horses were injured during their short lives. 

PROGRESS, CIVILIZATION, AND COMMERCE. 

On arriving here on the frontier, I put the prices of 
goods and wares down twenty per cent, and produce up 
fifteen per cent, as you and all the ancient pioneers of 
Davenport and Rock Island, then call-ed Stephenson, 
know. 

I purchased the bulk of the produce of Scott County 
that year and shipped one lot of some $2,000 of it by 
steamer in the fall for New Orleans. The boat was de- 
layed by leaking and other causes. My wheat and other 
produce was injured and did not pay the freight bill by 
$13.70, which I paid. 

I then built a large flat boat and fitted it out at a large 
cost, and placed some $2,000 of produce on board, and 
shipped Mr. David McKowen as super cargo. He is now 
residing in Rock Island, but then known, in 1842, as 
Stephenson. Early zero weather set in and froze the boat 
in on the shore of a lonely island during a long winter. In 
the spring they ran the boat, damaged, in to St. Louis. I 
gave the officers and the crew the boat and cargo as their 
prize. For the interesting history of this eventful voyage 
see Super Cargo, Mr. David McKowen of Rock Island. 



i6 

In 1843 I purchased a tract of land for a farm not far dis- 
tant, north of Central Park; taking in on its sonth side a 
portion of Duck Creek. The tract was one mile in length 
by a half mile in width. I enclosed it with four miles of 
fence, and built a farm house and barn, and planted many 
trees, plowed and put crops in. 

One half mile of the south fencing in the Duck Creek 
bottom was of the Pennsylvania order, constructed with 
split oak rails, cut on my island, and I in command ran 
the raft down the River Rapids aided by four gentlemen 
from Ireland. 

A portion of this Island rail product, that I personally 
rafted over the River's Rapids, I sold to the veteran, Mr. 
John Littig, now a resident of Kirkwood Boulevard, Dav- 
enport, Iowa, to fence his Gilbert farm. The father of Mr. 
John Littig worked for me as a stone cutter in New Orleans 
in the thirties, and his boy John, now of Kirkwood, peddled 
a daily journal, the Picayune, on the streets of New Orleans. 
The famous "Picayune," which was launched in 1837 by 
Editors Lumsdale and Kendal, long since departed over 
Jordan. 

There was no access to the farm, or to the property of others. 
I applied to the County commissioners to lay a county 
road from the north end of Harrison Stffeet, at Sixth Street 
to Hickory Grove, to be called the Hickory Grove road. 
The road to pass through this farm. The road was estab- 
lished, but the county had no funds to build the Duck 
Creek bridge, therefore the road was useless. I, at my 
own cost, as the ancient pioneers well know, erected a good 
and substantial timber bridge equal to any in the county. 
The earth filling at the approaches alone costing over one 
hundred dollars. 

In the thirties of the past century, two lines of steam rail- 
road were running out of New Orleans: one between the Mis- 
sissippi River and Lake Pontchartrain, running through 
the City on Esplanade Street. The steam horse of that 
primitive road was the first to drink the waters of the great 



17 



Mississippi River. The second line ran between New Or- 
leans and Carrellton, in the Parish of Jefferson. And hav- 
ing known those railroads from their incipiency and gained 
knowledge, I, after passing over the expansive prairies of 
the West, considered the West to be well adapted for rail- 
roads, and that they wonld build up and extend commerce, 
upon which I resolved to enter into the undertaking of cre- 
ating a line of railroad between the Atlantic and the Pacific 
Oceans, and I felt confident that, if the undertaking was 
entered on with resolve, that it could be accomplished. 

In the last days of 1842, and the first day of 1843, after 
publicly speaking of the feasibility of the work, and as a 
link, I procured instruments and took soundings for the 
first bridge erected on the Mississippi River, and published 
my report in a Philadelphia journal, which report I now 
have and which gives the nature of the banks and bottom; 
the width of the main channel and of the depth of the water^ 
and the nature of the route through Illinois to Chicago, 
and west to the Cedar River; both of which I examined. I 
wrote and talked river bridge and Pacific railroad, one 
meeting in 1845 ^ will name: It was in the frame school 
house that stood where the north end of the City Hall now 
stands. I there told the assembly, some of whom pronounced 
me visionary, that there were persons present that would live 
to see a railroad connecting the two oceans. I see here 
the veteran Jocob Eldridge, who was at that meeting. I 
will ask him if I correctly speak. (Mr. Eldridge replied: "I 
was present at that school house and you correctly speak.") 
Without a doubt, I am the first person to ever write or 
speak the word Atlantic and Pacific Railroad. At that 
time, now fifty-nine years past, there was not one foot of 
railroad west of the Allegheny Mountains, save those of 
New Orleans. 

As a link in the undertaking, I, in 1847, called on Mr. 
William Vanderveer, of Rock Island, and proposed to draw 
up a railroad charter and petition the Illinois Legislature 
for authority to build a railroad between Rock Island and 



La Salle, to connect with the Illinois Canal, 

The request was granted by an act passed on the loth 
of April, 1847, which charter I now hold, but too lengthy 
to here rehearse; work to commence within three years. 
I consumed one of the years in talking and writing. Then 
I individually opened a subscription list for stock, entered 
a few shares for myself, and, as a member of the Board of 
County Commissioners, prevailed on my two associates of 
the Board to pass an order submitting to the people the 
question of taking $25,000 in stock of the Illinois Railroad. 

I immediately went to work and called meetings at every 
school house and every grove settlement in the County to 
get a few shares of stock here and there, and endeavor to 
secure votes for the $25,000 county appropriation. In many 
quarters I met with bitter opposition to voting money to 
go to Illinois. I found many Ciceros to combat, yet the 
appropriation was carried, and that now small sum of 
$25,000 put the ball in motion, and was a splendid invest- 
ment for Scott County and the great West, even to the 
shore of the Pacific Ocean. 

I found it but a small task to convince •the majority of 
my farmer audience. I brought them over when I told them 
that with a railroad to Chicago, and extending to the East, 
that instead of getting five and six cents per dozen for their 
eggs that they would get twelve to fifteen cents; that instead 
of twelve to eighteen cents for good chickens, they would 
get twenty and twenty-five cents; that instead of getting 
ten to fifteen cents for prairie chickens and ducks, they 
would get fifteen up to twenty-five cents; that instead of 
thirty-seven cents per dozen for quails, they would get 
fifty or sixty cents, and that instead of forty to fifty cents 
for a fourteen pound turkey, they would get seventy-five 
to ninety cents, and instead of getting thirty to fort}^ cents 
for good wheat, they would get seventy to eighty cents 
per bushel, and for all products in proportion. 

I told the farmers that but yesterday this territory was 
an untrodden wilderness; that we had faced every hardship 



19 

and privation to open np and to plant the Stars and Stripes 
on its fertile plains to stay; that where not long since stood 
the Indian wigwam, now Cities rise; that where the buffalo, 
the elk and deer grazed, now vast fields of golden wheat 
appear to gladden the fanner's heart and repay him for 
his toil; that we have here on these lately dreary prairies 
created a scene of life and beauty. The prairie grass has 
given place to the garden and the vineyard; the hazel thicket 
to the blooming rose; and the Indian trail to the promenade 
of the fair. 

I told the farmers that westward the star of empire took 
its course; that progress, civilization, and commerce had 
their birth in India; that they slowly rolled into Assyria, 
Egypt, Greece and Rome; then more slowly found their 
way into France and England; then they floated westward 
on the ocean's waves to Plymouth Rock. They did not 
long linger amongst the scrub oaks and the barren soil of 
New England, but rolled their way with increased momen- 
tum westward to Chicago, and now they have to leap the rapid 
moving floods of the Mississippi River and onward through 
Iowa to the Rocky Mountains, not to tarry, but to leap over 
their snow-capped summits to continue to roll upon the far 
westward plains; to plant commerce and civilization on the 
coast of the Pacific Ocean, and I call on you who possess 
the power to keep the wave of progress in its course onward. 
And the united county and Davenport City subscription 
of $100,000 was carried by a large majority to perfect the 
first link in the great Pacific Railroad, in time to astonish 
the world. 

Taking the wealth and population of that day, that one 
hundred thousand dollars was a larger sum than one-half 
million would be this year 1901. 

When Iowa had made good headway, and I alone called 
many meetings at Moline and Camdon, now Milan, and 
worked up an interest in the enterprise, then many count- 
ies in Illinois, and many individuals in Scott County, came 
into the work. At this day great injustice has been done 
to the real creators, of Bridge, Railroads, Arsenal, Canals 



20 

and edifices. In .some instances big men, who opposed 
them and other works of utility have been extensively 
written as their creator. No difficulty in arriving at the 
correct history as many journals have the facts indelibly 
stamped within their columns and which point out the 
World builders. 

The thoughtless do not know that he who plows the ground 
and sows the seed is as much the producer as the man 
that reaps and eats it. I have ancient history on file at 
my office including the railroad creators. 

In a Rock Island journal, dated October 24th, 1849, a 
railroad meeting is reported as being held in Rock Island^ 
and Rock Island, Davenport, Moline and Camdon were 
represented. A committee of five on resolutions were ap- 
pointed as follows: H. A. Porter and C. B. Waite of Rock 
Island; James Thorington and A. C. Fulton of Davenport, 
and W. A. Nurse of Moline. 

Action towards vigorous work on the Rock Island and 
Chicago Railroad and on Bridging the Mississippi River 
at Rock Island, and extending the railroad to the Pacific 
Ocean was taken up and discussed. 

To push those gigantic works to completion required 
untiring energy. To accomplish the undertaking, a com- 
mittee of five was appointed consisting of William Baily 
and Fernando Jones, of Rock Island; A. C. Fulton, of Dav- 
enport; I. M. Gilmore, of Camdon and W. A. Nurse of 
Moline was appointed to carry the three great works to 
completion, and who appointed Sailor I as chairman. Two 
of my associates soon resigned and moved from that section, 
and later two of them left the lower world. But I, well 
knowing that resolution was omnipotent, continued to add 
to my stock lists, and worked up town and county aid. 

I journeyed to Chicago by stage; put up at the ancient 
Briggs House to see a good team of horses stall in the 
muddy street with a cord of wood a few rods distant from 
my quarters. 

I talked Western Railroad to many merchants and busi- 



2i 

ness men; all looked me over with great astonishment ancl 
said "Best go and see long John Wentworth". I saw long 
John, who deliberately fathomed me, then exclaimed "Tut, 
tut, young man, you must be insane! a railroad west would 
not pay for the grease for the wheels," and I departed from 
the then muddy town, without even a symptom of en- 
couragement. 

The journals of 1850, now in my possession, report that 
on the 2ist of March, 1850, the delegates of various coun- 
ties of Illinois and Scott County, Iowa, assembled in Rock 
Island, I as chairman of the Pacific Railroad committee, 
presented to the assembly the amounts of the several sub- 
scriptions of shares of stock taken in the Rock Island and 
Chicago Railroad, as follows: Rock Island 400, Camdon 
172, Moline 63, F. R. Brunot 20, I. Sullivan 5, Bureau 
County 300, Henry County 103, Scott County, Iowa 700, 
LaSalle County (pledged) 250, Peru delegates (pledged) 
250. This 2,263 shares of stock of $100 each may appear 
as a miserable exhibit, when millions were required, but 
we, the resolute and untiring, considered it a grand en- 
trance. 

In this work as is well known to all pioneers, I had no 
aid save at two meetings; one at the Republic of LeClaire 
(as then called); where with Judge Grant I called my sec- 
ond meeting; and one at Blue Grass, where Hon. Hiram 
Price w^ent with me on condition that I paid for the team. 
Hon. Price made a good talk, and we got thirteen shares 
of stock subscribed, and a pledge for every vote in the 
school house. 

To show that railroad talkers sometimes encountered a 
rough sea, I must state, that on our way home to Davenport, 
under the light of a half moon, I ran the larboard wheels 
of our buggy into a deep washout and also dumped Mr. 
Price into it, but fortune, as ever was with our congress- 
man; he was soon out and on his feet, and while brushing 
off the damp clay, he with energ}^ exclaimed: "Such an 
awkward dri\'er I ne\'er did see. I would not go with 3'ou 



22 

another night for all Iowa. Here it is near midnight, and 
I should be at home and blacking my boots and shave 
for Sunday." And whilst our congressman was in a clay 
mud ditch, the stay-at-home-do-nothings were snoozing in 
their beds. We drove some miles home to Davenport in 
a lop-sided buggy in silence, and I paid James Thompson, 
the coming banker, for the team and for a new set of 
springs for the buggy. 

I neglected to say that at LeClaire we did not secure 
even one share of stock, and but one vote for the county 
subscription. That Republic protested against building 
railroads in Illinois. They had their Monroe Doctrine, and 
objected to foreign invasion, even to talk railroad. 

I frequently reported my lone night meetings as chair- 
man to the press. To name one here that you may have 
a knowledge of railroad building in the middle of the past 
century. A three mile walk to the then hamlet of Moline 
and back, during a dark stormy night; a river to cross. As 
respects success, my report witnesses: (For the Gazette.) 

Rock Island and Chicago Railroad. 



Moline is Wide Awake to Hei^ Interests and Taking 

the Lead. 

Mr. Sanders: — I attended a railroad meeting last night 
at Moline. All present seemed resolved to carry out the 
grand object for which they had assembled. The greatest 
enthusiasm prevailed; many of the old stockholders came 
forward and doubled their subscriptions and new subscrip- 
tions were obtained. Thirty-one shares were subscribed 
in a brief time, and it was unanimously resolved that the 
Town Council take a subscription of $2,500. Amongst 
the subscribers were two youths of not over twelve years 
of age, who took one share each, and not only subscribed, 
but paid up their installments. What a noble example; I 
would walk ten miles any night to see such praiseworthy 
actions. I have, Mr. Editor, sometimes thought that the 



23 

Union might at some future day be scarce of the proper 
kind of material for presidents and senators, but the whole- 
souled, noble conduct of the Moline youth, has dispelled 
my fears. I am satisfied that such noble hearted youths 
will, when they arrive at manhood, be fitted for any sta- 
tion. We need no longer wonder how a few individuals of 
Moline with but limited means erected all those costly 
mills and manufacturies — the mystery is solved. Let 
those subscribers in Scott County, who have not paid up 
their installments, imitate the above example by coming 
forward and cashing up manfully. I was much pleased 
with the resolve of the meeting to drop all sectional jeal- 
ousy and advocate the shortest, cheapest and best route for 
the railroad, let that be where it may. 

Yours, 
Davenport, April ist, 1851. A. C. Fulton. 

When I at that day feared we might run short of presi- 
dential timber, the great Lincoln and McKinley had not 
stepped before the footlights of fame to astonish a gazing, 
gaping world, and our highly praised and efficient Roose- 
velt was not bom. 

The exertion here made and the funds raised became 
known to eastern railroad men, and Messrs. Farnam, Wal- 
cott, and Durant visited us. The $300,000 required by 
charter having been subscribed, a contract for the con- 
struction and equipment of a railroad between Chicago 
and Rock Island was perfected with the above railroad 
constructors on the 15th day of October, 1851. The first 
payment on work performed, was made on April 20th, 
1852; then on Feb. 22d, 1854, amidst the waving of ban- 
ners and the thunder of artillery, the Iron Horse of the 
Atlantic drank the water of the great Mississippi River. 
The first link of one hundred and eighty-one miles of the 
Pacific Railroad had been completed. 



24 

THE FIRST MISSISSIPPI RIVER BRIDGE. 

The construction company was organized in 1853, ten 
years after my survey. The work was commenced Jan. 
17, 1854. 

The wood work was constructed by Stone, Boomer and 
Boyington, of Davenport, and the stone work by John 
Warner, Esq., of Rock Island, all western men. The 
stone piers were seven feet wide at the top by thirty-five 
feet long and thirty-eight feet high, resting on solid rock. 
Bach span was 250 feet in length. The turntable was 285 
feet long and had a clear channel of 120 feet on each side. 

The length of the bridge from Davenport to Arsenal 
Island was 1,581 feet. There was used in its construction, 
1,080,000 feet of lumber, 400,000 pounds of wrought iron, 
and 290,000 lbs. of cast iron. The cost of the bridge was 
$350,000. 

The draw was swung open April gtli, 1856. Then 
on April 21st, 1856, the splendid new locomotive, Des 
Moines, with a freight train, entered Iowa amidst a shouting 
crowd. 

The second link in the Pacific chain of commerce had 
been completed in the face of strong opposition from all 
the world south of the Black Hawk Hunting Ground. 
The steamboat interest was bitter, and the Mayor of St. 
Louis was instructed by the council to apply to the Supreme 
Court of the United States for an injunction, restraining 
the construction of the bridge. 

On the morning of May 6th, 1856, I was on my way up 
the river shore, and when opposite now Federal Street, I 
halted to see the steamboat, Effie Afton, pass through the 
south draw of the bridge. She appeared to have passed 
the draw when she swung round, striking against the south 
span with a crash, and was soon in flames, and sinking. 
The bridge caught fire and one span was destroyed by the 
fire. No lives were lost and the energetic bridge company 
commenced rebuilding the burned span the next morning. 
An attempt was made at night to burn the bridge by plac- 



25 

ing bundles of lath with tar thrown on them after having 
been placed on the bridge from boats beneath at mid-river. 
The world's first Suspension Bridge was erected by the 
Chinese and was in good preservation in 1611, 

ONWARD WEST AND THE THIRD LINK. 

After taking soundings and making surveys east and 
west in 1842 for this now completed Mississippi Bridge, I, 
in November, 1845, <irew up a memorial to the senate and 
house of representatives of the United States, requesting 
a grant of land to construct a railroad from Davenport to 
Council Bluffs. 

To obtain signatures to those petitions, and secure stock 
towards the construction of the road, I held meetings in 
many counties. O, how long and hard did I work, 
through cold and heat. Not this alone, for the people and 
the journals. North and South, ruthlessly made war on 
me. Muscatine sent their talented Lawyer O'Connor to 
follow me with a counter petition and stock list, and to 
combat me on the stand, in favor of Muscatine. Not this 
alone, but I had to, alone and unaided, defend the rights 
of our enterprise against such eminent journals as the 
Burlington Hawkeye, and the State Gazette. See sam- 
ple of my defence in the Davenport Gazette, of July 25th, 
1850. 

I, as one of the Pacific Railroad Committee, and as an in- 
terested citizen, procured and constantly sent petitions on 
to Messrs. Dodge and Jones, at Washington, and later to 
Hon. Leffler, of the House; but all three were bitterly op- 
posed to our Railroad and to granting land to it. Their 
interests were North and South and they demanded three 
grants of land or none. Finally during the session of 
1850, Hon. G. W. Jones presented a bill that long lingered. 
On January ist, 1848, I, as Chairman of the committee 
of five to construct a railroad from the Lakes at Chicago 
to the Pacific Ocean, petitioned the First General Assemby 
of Iowa, in extra session, to aid us in procuring from the 
United States the right of way, and a donation of land for 



26 

a railroad from Davenport by w3.y of Iowa City, Raccoon 
Forks, of the Des Moines River to Council Bluffs, on the 
Missouri River. Then on the 24th day of January, 1848, 
the General Assembly of Iowa instructed our Senators and 
requested our Representatives to procure from the Govern- 
ment of the United States the grant of land. The citizens 
and journals of Burlington protested against the act (see 
records). 

A committee of three consisting of J. Grant, H. Price, 
and A. C. Fulton was appointed by a meeting to draft a 
Memorial to Congress for the grant of land. This com- 
mittee adopted A. C. Fulton's original Memorial, that he 
had long been circulating. 

In February, 1850, the most exciting, interesting and 
momentous convention that ever convened in Iowa assem- 
bled in the Senate Chamber at the Capitol in Iowa City. 
It was a state railroad convention to establish the line of 
Iowa's first railroad, a grant of land being in view, and 
every man desired the road to pass near his door. Ni-.iteen 
counties were represented by their most talented and ener- 
getic men. The number of delegates were not limited. 
Davenport's most energetic and talented men were selected. 
Judge Grant, Judge Mitchell, Ebenezer Cook and Old Sail- 
or I, and others Avith a brass band made a grand entry in- 
to lovv^a City. 

A vast majority of the citizens of the then little cit}' of 
Davenport greatly feared Metropolis Muscatine, with her 
money and talented men. Davenport had been on the wane 
until two large steam flour mills had been erected to bring 
money in. 

I concluded to offset the Muscatine money and power b}^ 
procuring interested voters on or near my Pacific surveyed 
line of 1843, north of Muscatine. I made a long, cold and 
costl}^ journe}' to the town of Rochester and Moscow on 
the Cedar River; called town meetings and appointed five 
delegates at Moscow and seven at Rochester. The first 
contest in our convention was over the question of seat- 



27 

ing those delegates. Editor T, D. Bagal, who was a dele- 
gate, published in his Democratic Banner as follows: "A 
motion was made to deprive the delegates from Moscow, 
Rochester, and adjoining townships of their seats. Mr. 
A. C. Fulton defended their rights and contended that they 
were duly appointed and gave evidence of the whole pro- 
cedure; stating that he had recommended the citizens of 
those townships to call meetings and appoint delegates. 
The delegates were seated." This was a happy thought 
for this delegation secured a vital point. 

This delegate occurance gave me an entrance into the 
arena with the Great. And the Capitol Reporter, a lead- 
ing journal published as follows; which the Davenport 
Gazette copied: Mr. Fulton, we believe it was admitted 
that this gentleman made the best practical address which 
was delivered before the Railroad Convention. He is a 
practical business man, and one of untiring industry and 
perseverance." (Copied by the "Davenport Gazette" of 
March 7th, 1S50). 

I did not merit such a remarkably eulogy, for I had 
trained a third of a century to meet that assembly of big 
men. The balance of the delegation had but two weeks to 
train in, yet many of them, especially the court judges and 
lawyers produced well thumbed sheets of once pure white 
paper. Poor I had no paper. 

My goodness to counter balance a few lines of eulogy, 
niau}^ columns in many journals spoke bitter centure. 
They published me as getting counterfeit maps of Iowa 
engraved, and controlling the action of the State Conven- 
tion. To understand the weight of this published pressure 
on poor I, see the "Davenport Gazette" of February 21st; 
1850, and Editor Eagal's "Democratic Banner" of that 
month, now in my possession that comment on it. 

At the night session, to name the railroad was in order. 
I moved that it be called the Davenport and Pacific Rail- 
road. Voted down. I then moved that it be called the 
Davenport and Missouri. Voted down. Then I moved 



28 

that it be the Davenport and Council Bluff. Voted down. 
I then moved to call it the Mississippi and Missouri Rail- 
road. Carried, and the road was so named. 

For many facts, see the veteran of extended memory, Mr. 
Jacob Eldridge, who was a delegate to that historical con- 
vention. 

In 1845, ^^^- ^- Whitney spoke of a Pacific railroad, 
and in 1 848 petitioned for a grant of land. One of his points 
was at Prairie du Chien, and crossing the head waters of 
many rivers. He, in his report, speaks of many bridges. 
I, three years previous, had found an excellent line with 
few bridges. Mr. Whitney's work and talk proved abortive. 

My Pacific railroad survey of 1842 placed an elevated 
bridge without a draw for boats at the rock chain of the 
Indian ford of the river, at the west end of the water works 
ground. I passed through now Prospect Park, and on 
high ground north of Walcut on to Manchester on the 
Cedar river, and on to the then capitol, Iowa City, with no 
deep cuts or heavy fills, but one equal to the capacity of 
the other. I entered Davenport's small bottom flat by 
switch lines. The chief city to be founded on the expan- 
sive, sightly and healthy bluif land. 

Years thereafter, when the River bridge was burned and 
vast, expensive cuts and fills were called for and the Fifth 
street embargo set in. Chief Engineer Farnam and directors 
told me that had my line been adopted that it would have 
benefitted the line and saved over a half million dollars. 
There would not have been any vast bluff or Dutchmans cut; 
no duplicate river bridge; no Fifth Street elevation in 1901. 

When it was proposed and published that the city of 
Davenport should subscribe $75,000 to the M. & M, Rail- 
road, a large majority of the citizens cried "No! never," but 
when I proposed, and it was published that A. C. Fulton 
would take the $75,000 if the shops, depot and oflices were 
located east of the then city. Then the majority changed 
their minds and voted the $75,000. 

At that period no Cable had appeared, nor was one ex- 



29 

pected to appear and move the shops and offices to the State 
of Illinois, to the great injury of the line, and cause me to 
create the Davenport and St. Paul, and the D. I. & D. 
Railroads with an opposition river bridge. 

The charter of this railroad — the M. & M. — was recorded 
in Scott County, on January ist, 1853, to exist for fifty 
years, with a capital of six million of dollars. Its principal 
place of business shall be at Davenport in the State of Iowa. 
For this purpose, I worked long and hard, but during late 
years its Ishmaelitish directory has violated its charter, and 
all solemn pledges and moved to Illinois. Its corporate life 
will end within two years. The Fifth street buildings and 
elevated road will die young. 

On September ist, 1853, 1, as marshal of the day, marched 
a vast body of citizens from Second and Main Streets to 
Fifth and Rock Island Streets to lay the first steam rail- 
road tie ever laid in Iowa. After prayer, at my request, by 
Rev. A. Louderback, I, as marshal of the day, and Chair- 
man of the Atlantic and Pacific Railroad, called on a half 
breed Pottawatomie Indian, Antoine LeClaire, the white 
man's peer, to throw off his coat and lay the tie; and he 
performed the task, amidst waving flags and the shouts of 
thousands, and I, as marshal and chairman, pronounced 
the work a portion of the Atlantic and Pacific Railroad. 

This was the most important railroad tie ever laid in this 
Union. Its road opened up Kansas and Nebraska, and a 
vast territory beyond them; and placed the Atlantic and 
the Pacific Oceans side by side. For report of that import- 
ant and eventful day, see "Davenport Democratic Banner" 
and "Davenport Gazette" of September 2nd and 3rd, 1853. 

Construction of the line followed, and on July 19th, 1855, 
at 12 M., the splendid and most powerful locomotive of that 
day, manufactured at Patterson, New Jersey, the Antoine 
LeClaire, crossed the Mississippi River on board of a flat- 
boat and made a landing at the junction of Front and Fourth 
Streets, amidst waving flags and the cheers of hundreds, to 
pass to its iron path at the Freight Depot grounds; and 



30 

was the first iron horse to wake the echoes of Iowa, and 
cause the wild deer, and coyotes of the prairies to gaze in 
wonder. 

Then came to Rock Island the new locomotive, John A. 
Dix, to be dismantled and passed over the Mississippi 
River on the ice; thence up Alain Street, on February iSth, 
1856, to be placed on its Fifth Street track; and seven new 
freight cars followed on its ic}^ trail. The John A. Dix 
was an ill-starred locomotive. It was constantly in trouble, 
one of which was its blowing up at Duck Creek bridge 
and killing Engineer Mr. Smith. 

The road reached Iowa City December 20th, 1S55; a dis- 
tance of fifty-five miles; and after slow progress during 
twelve years after the first tie was laid at Davenport, the 
construction engine entered the suburbs of the Bluff City. 
The length of the line is 314 miles. 

This line of railroad and the Mississippi's first bridge 
and the Island Arsenal owe their existance through procur- 
ing this grant of land, that was procured through long and 
hard work with formidable opposition. 

At that day, when Democracy was in the ascendancy, I, 
as an abolitionist was twice defeated by a small majority 
as a candidate for the House; but was elected to the State 
Senate, and served during the sessions of 1854, 1855 and 
the extra session of 1856, Old Sailor I was one of the com- 
mittee to draft and form our new railroad laws. At the 
onset some grangers objected to giving railroads the right 
to condemn property and desired to limit Depot grounds to 
three acres. 

Within a year Mr. J. Mahin, the eminent editor of the 
Muscatine Journal, who is noted as authority on Iowa his- 
tory, published in his Journal that A. C. Fulton procured 
the grant of land to construct the Mississippi and Mis- 
souri Railroad. 



. 31 

THK PACIFIC END. 

■ Our directors of the M. &. M. Road were the chief promo- 
tors and power to act on Congress in behalf of the Pacific 
end of the line. Then came in Wall Street infliiencc to 
create a credit Mobile and pick two of l"^ncle Sam's 
pockets. If one of the forty thieves truly told me of his 
astonishing and unlooked for wealth. 

THE DAVENPORT AND ST. PAUL. 

When journeying between Scott and Buchanan Counties, 
while damming the Wapsipinicon River, in 1842, I paid 
attention to the formation of the land, the extent of terri- 
tory that would support a railroad. The first day's work 
on the Davenport and St. Paul Railroad, now the Chicago, 
Milwaukee and St. Paul, no tie was laid, no band was 
played, only a fourteen hours day's work; no rest, no rations, 
yet a railroad was created worth hundreds of thousands of 
dollars to the state. Only one day's work to put the ball in 
motion and direct its course, that it now speeds on to 
greatness. 

On the morning of April 7th, 1867, I rose early, and 
with a township map, a note book and a pocket compass, 
went to the river at the foot of Perry Street; then followed 
the river up to Spring Street, then passed north by east 
over the bluff to Goose Creek Valley; thence northward, 
noting the situation until a retiring sun warned me of 
approaching night, and wading sloughs, and climbing 
fences reminded me of a lack of noonday rations. 

On the morrow I procured a team and called on Mr. 
Iv. F. Parker, who joined me. He passed over the roads 
with the team whilst I followed my line through fields. 
We were greatly elated with our examination, and the 
feasibilit}' of the line. Those two days work are on record. 

I immediately drew up a stock subscription list for stock 
in the Davenport and St. Paul Railroad, and subscribed 
fifty shares, $5,000, and soon increased it to $6,200. I 
went on the street and also called on business men and 
run the list up to $54,000. I then called on Mr. Frank 



32 

Miller, of Beiderbecke and Miller, and we canvassed the 
First Ward, with but limited success. Then many citi- 
zens and persons on the line came forward into the work 
with energy. The stock list was extended and I placed 
the act of incorporation on record, the fifth da\^ of Febru- 
ary, 1869. 

Subscriptions were increased; bonds issued, and a con- 
tract let for a northern portion of the line which was 
brought in to Pine Hill, with a switch running west to the 
Dubuque Road north of Duck Creek, where freight and 
passengers floundered in deep mud to take the train. The 
money was exhausted, a receiver appointed, and it was es- 
timated that $240,000 would be required to bring the line 
where it now runs to Warren Street. I, a director, claimed 
that those figures were unreasonable. The company had 
no money to test the cost by a survey and estimate. 

A citizen's meeting was called on the subject of getting 
out of the mud. Long talk but no work was the order. I 
proposed that Mr. Jacob Eldridge and A. C. Fulton be ap- 
pointed to make surveys and estimates of the cost of con- 
structing the line from Pine Hill in to the city at Warren 
Street. Mr. Jacob Hldridge has not yet appeared to per- 
form his portion of winter work on that line, but Fulton 
employed men at his own cost to carry chain and take 
river soundings. 

On January 2d, 1874, I reported through the city jour- 
nals that the railroad could be constructed from Pine Hill 
in to the city at Warren Street, on the ground where it is 
now located for the sum of $114,671.20, and that I would 
construct it for that sum of money. I proposed to the bond 
holders, through Mr. John E. Henry, receiver, to perform 
the work for my reported estimate. • 

When the bondholders knew that the line could be con- 
structed at that cost, they immediately agreed to perform 
the work, if the right of way was given to them. 

A tax was voted and stock taken; but the City Council 
and a majority of the citizens were bitterly opposed to per- 



33 

mitting the line to enter on to Front street. It was a fierce 
battle of a resolute few against the many. The many 
claimed that to permit the railroad to enter on the street, 
the total ruin of Davenport would follow. The city auth- 
orities attempted to annul the tax levy for the road as well 
as to prohibiting it to enter on to Front Street, and for 
those purposes, applied to the upper courts for aid, at 
heavy cost, and the loss of time to many besides reefing 
the sails of progress. The using of Front Street was 
ameliorated by cutting a slice off of the Democratic Farm 
and some other property near Spring Street, and widen- 
ing Front Street. 

As a director and a hard and constant worker, I never 
received one dollar, and my $6,200 in stock that I paid in 
full, is a total loss, and is placed in a frame at the Academy 
of Science with other relics of the past. 

Time calls a halt, but I must report one occurence con- 
nected with the Front Street Railroad embargo. One 
afternoon I took my man Friday to repair a broken side- 
walk on Front Street, south of now Prospect Park, that I 
then owned. Near evening Uncle Joe LeClaire, then City 
Marshal, drove up in a buggy and informed me that I was 
under arrest by warrant issued, for taking illegal possesion 
of Front Street and building a railroad on it. 

We made a landing at the City Attorney's office. When 
I entered his office, I found him gloriously intoxicated. 
His first words were, "You should be sent to Fort Madison 
prison during life, and I hear you were a pirate at sea, but 
you cannot seize on a Davenport street while I am City 
Attorney. You are a dangerous man." I was liberated 
after dark by giving bond. 

Alderman George Shaw reported me to be preparing to 
take possession of the street, by rushing the railroad down 
on to it that Saturday night and on the coming Sunday. 

My chief objection to this act of arrest was, that I, as a 
tax-payer, had to pay a larger sum for the team and the 
marshal's services than had the entire bunch of City Offi- 
cials, from Mayor down to Janitor. 



34 

The local editor of the Davenport Gazette got hold of the 
arrest through my man Friday, who had been under my 
charge during twenty-nine years, and the Gazette published 
as follows: 

SOLD AGAIN. 

Fulton is decidedly a case. He has built steam mills, 
erected blocks of stores and dwellings, made additions cov- 
ering hundreds of lots in our city — done lots of things that 
very few ot her men would ever think of trying to do under 
the circumstances; but his last undertaking was ahead of all. 
One day this week he took a notion to put some posts in 
the ground alongside of the walk up town, saying it was to 
keep teams from running over and breaking down the walks. 
Had almost any other man been engaged in doing the same 
thing it would have been all right, nothing thought of it. 
But Fulton — ah! there's a sharp trick of some kind. 
Sixth ward was aroused. Alderman Shaw knew Fulton 
was putting the D. & St. Paul R. R. into the city without 
consulting him. That would not answer, and he sent for 
the City Marshal to stop any such enterprise, for when 
that road does come in it is to be done through the medium 
of a series of meetings and numberless resolutions. Alder- 
man Sears knew another thing: Fulton was deliberately 
stealing Front Street, and he went for Mr. City Engineer 
to set those street lines suddenly and keep the trans- 
gressor out. The Mayor became interested. The editors 
and proprietors of the "Democrat" were excited — a street 
was to be stolen or a railroad built and they not advised. 
All this terrible commotion simply because Fulton and one 
hired man were setting some pine sticks in the ground! 
What a thing it is to have a reputation for doing odd things." 

At that trying period, George H. French was President, 
M. O. Barnes, Vice-President. The executive committee 
was George H. French, George H. Parker, Michael Dono- 
hue, J. H. Berryhill, and A. C. Fulton. 

See "Gazette" files. I have copy of "Gazette" publication. 

If the railroad that I created was injurious to the property 



35 

holders on the street, then my injury would be large, as 
my frontage exceeded that of any four owners on the street. 
It extended over 1400 feet. See records. 

In 1867, with a few others at the onset, we worked up 
subscriptions for the Peoria and Rock Island Railroad. I 
worked long and hard on the Iowa side. The sheriff and 
trouble came. Alost every Davenport stock-holder repudi- 
ated through the courts. I almost alone paid up in full; 
and hold my worthless stock certificates as witness of the 
enterprise. 

THE CREvSCENT BRIDGE. 

The creation of the Crescent Bridge and the Davenport, 
Iowa and Dakota Railroad, first named the Davenport, 
Sioux City & Pittsburg Railroad. 

In 1 88 1, Davenport plainly showed signs of inactivity; 
enterprising cities were branching out railroads near us, 
and factories were looking for railroad centers. Our jour- 
nals noted the situation. 

I was familiar with the territory northwest of us, and 
resolved to enter into the undertaking of creating Daven- 
port's fifth railroad. I practically introduced the enterprise 
and published the following report of my cold winter work 
and $61.00 outlay in surveys. As history, and that you 
may understand the then situation, I place before you my 
report to the "Davenport Gazette." 

SURVEYS EOR A NEW BRIDGE BETWEEN ROCK ISLAND AND 
THIS PLACE A PROJECT WORTH WORKING FOR. 

Editor of The Gazette: — Our City and County are 
not fully developed, and to develop them we must have 
more railroads. 

Every twenty -five mile, in width of territory will support 
a line of railroad and pay a fair dividend if water is kept 
out of the composition of its stock. In canvasing the 
matter we must aim at an Eastern connection. I will give 
my individual idea, and, no doubt, some one can improve 
on it. My idea would be to work up a line between Dav- 
enport and Pittsburg, and on westward, through Tipton 



36 

and Marion, to Sioux City. We must traverse territory 
unoccupied by railroads, except to cross and tap them where 
it will pay. 

To accommodate this Davenport, Sioux City and Pitts- 
burg line it will be advisable to erect a bridge across the 
Mississippi at the western end of the city. To ascertain 
the practicability of bridging at this point, I proceeded in 
September last to plat the several islands and take their 
bearings and make soundings wathin the river until high 
water stopped my operations, I this day procured prop- 
per sounding rods, chartered a boat and crew, and with an 
instrument kindly furnished me by Surveyor Murray, I 
again entered on the work by driving an abutment stake 
on the southern verge of Hall's Island, over which we 
erected a staff and nailed the American flag at its peak, 
where it now waves. From this stake we took a bearing 
south 19° west to the Rock Island shore, where we also 
planted a stake, having reconnoitered the territory eastward 
as far as Camden, in October, we proceeded to take sound- 
ings of the river, which we found far more favorable than 
we had anticipated. Basing our measurement at low water, 
we found — with the exception of the channel, which is lo- 
cated near the Rock Island shore and in some 250 feet in 
width, with ten feet of water — that the remainder of the 
distance has a depth varying from three up to seven feet; 
add to this 7.35, the stage of the water this evening, and it 
will give you the total depth of the river at the proposed 
bridge location this day. We found rock bottom to prevail 
a greater portion of the distance. Our sounding imple- 
ments were not of a capacity to reach the rock within the 
channels. 

Davenport and Iowa must keep pace with other cities 
and States by both water and railroad facilities for exports 
and imports, and I am well satisfied that the Hennepin 
canal and the Davenport, Sioux City & Pittsburg Railroad 
will create a grand revolution, benefitting the entire North- 
west. Whilst the general Government will construct the 



37 

former, the people of the cities, villages, towns, and the 
farming community can and should construct the latter 
which will add fully twenty-five per cent to the value of 
their possessions, as well as a large sum through the facil- 
ities of communication and cheap transportation. 
Davenport, Iowa, Dec. ist, 1881. A. C. Fulton. 

I wrote up and talked up this fifth railroad into Daven- 
port before the Board of Trade, of which I was a member. 
Every member of that board, save one, was opposed to en- 
tering into the undertaking. It was talked and wTitten as 
"Fulton's Folly." Then I got the one advocate. Air. Jacob 
Kldridge, to second my motion to appoint a committee of 
three to draft articles of incoporation. The president as a 
bluff amended the motion and appointed A. C. Fulton a 
committee of one to draft the instrument. This thought- 
ful act of the opposing president caused a look and smile 
of approval from the opposers of the road that could be 
seen and felt, and this when we had an army of profes- 
sional writers, who should have taken an interest in pro- 
gress. 

That assembly did not know that during sixty years I 
had trained for this and like emergencies. I had been 
there before. I performed the duty and placed within it 
the following persons, as corporators, without consulting 
them: 

A. F. Williams, Geo. H. French, J. M. Kldridge, A. 
Burdick, J. J. Tomson, Julius Schutts, W. C. Wadsworth, 
A. J. Hershall, T. W. McClelland, J. R. Nutting, H. M.' 
Martin, S. P. Bryant, N. Kuhnen. T. D. Eagal, D. N. 
Richardson, Gus Thompson, A. C. Fulton. 

To contend with a vast majority of the citizens required 
energy. The following epistle to the "Davenport Demo- 
crat" presents the then situation. 

RAILROAD MUSIC. 

Editor Democrat: To hold the life in our city, we must 
have, can have, more railroads. 

A few citizens assembled on the 17th to canvass our sit- 



3« 

nation. The cry was raised that 'all territory, both east 
and west was now occupied, and that we possessed no 
money. Indianapolis, Chicago and Omaha, with a 
dozen railroads, want and will have more. Before ten 
years passes, when we are cut off on all sides by the roads 
of a more energetic people, we will say that we should 
have acted in 1882. 

Many of us pile up money in banks, or invest it in min- 
ing stock, mortgages and bonds. Ten per cent of this 
money put into railroads or factories, would be more bene- 
ficial to the people and the city than the remaining ninety 
per cent. 

At the meeting above referred to, some speakers advo- 
cated no action towards a new road, but to wait and con- 
nect with the Princeton or Wapsie line to reach the north- 
west. 

A shame it would be for Davenport to sleep and wake 
to be satisfied with a branch to Princeton, or to be a sub- 
urb of Elizabeth City of the Wapsie bend. 
March i8th, 1882. A. C. Fulton. 

My act of incorporation was submitted to two of our 
most eminent attorneys by the board, who pronounced it 
seaworthy in every respect. 

This plain, elastic instrument, in my hand writing, is 
now in the archives of the company. The charter was 
presented to the Board of Trade March 2 2d, 1882. At 
this point, Mr. William Holmes, a railroad man, branded 
and published my long and hard work as "Fulton's Pro- 
ject" and proposed to place it in the hands of its oppo- 
nents, and advocated delay, and wait to see if a line would 
not be built down the Wapsipinicon River bottom that we 
could tap at Princeton. 

My charter says, "the office and principal place of busi- 
ness shall be at Davenport, Scott County, Iowa. That the 
capital stock of the corporation shall be five million dol- 
lars, with the privilege of increasing it to thirteen mil- 
lion." The commencement of the life of this corporation 
took place on the 28th day of March, 1882, to continue for 



39 

the term of ninety-seven years, with the privilege and 
right of renewal. 

At that period not a man took any interest in the line, 
save by talking for, or against it. No money, no work. 

Under the name of the Davenport, Iowa and Dakota 
Railway Company, I placed the articles of incorporation 
on record April 25th, 1882. The first board of directors 
were: 

Judge J. S. Stacey, L. F. Parker, H. W. Baily, A. J. 
Hirschl, Levi Higgins, J. H. Murphy, M. Spelletitch, 
Robert Krause, A. F. Williams, Edward Russell, W. C. 
Wads worth, A. C. Fulton. 

A Prediction Verified. 

On July 28th, 1882, the following prediction was issued 
through the "Davenport Gazette." 

DAVENPORT AND DAKOTA. 



The SJiort Line Between them is the One Thing Wanted — 
The Time to Act is noiu Here. 

Editor of The Gazette: — The dull drag along monot- 
ony of the inhabitants of Davenport must and now is tel- 
ling on the business, and on the prosperit}^ of the city and 
county, and is especially affecting that class, the working 
men and women. We must be up and doing. A few, a 
very few active men cannot shoulder the duties of several 
thousand drones and do-nothings; all must come forward 
and aid in the work of progress. We boast of several mil- 
lion of our dollars as being loaned to our citizens on interest, 
this in the time of inactivity and depression is not an evi- 
dence of strength, but of weakness. 

In a few years, yes, a very few, our saw mills and plan- 
ing mills, which employ several hundred men and boys, 
will cease to operate, as the accessible timber is fast dis- 
appearing, and railroads are fast penetrating the interior, 
and mills are being erected to manufacture the timber 
within the forest for distant markets. 

The outside work on our Rack Island Arsenal, which 



40 

gives employment to several hundred men, is drawing 
toward completion. It is therefore absolutely necessary 
that we exert ourselves and fill this coming vacancy 

Manufactories of the various articles and commodities 
necessary for every day life can alone fill the blank and 
retain our ascendancy, and prevent a downward tendancy 
of business and prosperity. To work a change in the in- 
terest of Davenport and Scott county is but a light task 
if taken in hand by the united people. Let us heartily 
meet every manufacturing enterprise that is presented 
with evidence of utility. There is this day before us the 
proposed chemical works, which if established is capable 
of being extended to colossean proportions yielding profits 
far beyond almost any other manufactory. 

Then another lever to hoist us toward prosperity is the 
Davenport, Iowa, & Dakota Railroad, which is now hav- 
ing its weak life sustained by one or two old men who are 
coaxing and gadding up a few younger men to dull and 
reluctant action. The country and interior villages in 
this railroad enterprise are in advance of our slow inactive 
city. This railroad will give us a new lease on a business 
life. This road asks for and must have the right to use 
the now almost useless and unsightly river front; must 
have stock lists opened and sums large and small con- 
tributed. Interested townships, counties and cities must 
vote liberal aid. 

All well wishers of Davenport must go to work on this 
railroad and labor just as hard as they would in putting 
some lazy, worthless politician into a paying office. Print- 
ers' ink must be freely used. 

Then will we see railroad buildings erected on the Front 
street dirt dumping ground, and the cars of the Wabash 
and C. B. & Q. with long trains of Dakota wheat fringing 
the banks of our grand river, with a new bridge resting 
upon its islands and connecting the great states of Iowa and 
Illinois. Would this not be an achievement worthy of the 
cost and labor bestowed, 

Davenport, July 28, 1882^ A. C. Fulton. 



41 

In July, 1882, 1 drew up an ordinance granting the right 
of way through the city of Davenport on the levee to the 
Davenport, Iowa 6c Dakota Railway Co., which was sub- 
mitted to the City Council at its first August session. It 
was referred and laid over to the next session, and when 
it appeared, it was so distorted and wrecked that I had to 
tell the council that no sane man would place thousands 
of dollars under it. 

Then at the next Council meeting, a plat of *the Cit}^ 
front south of the north line of Front Street, with the loca- 
tion of the Davenport and St. Paul, or the INIilwaukee & 
Northwestern Railroad buildings, main line and switches 
complete, was demanded by the w^ould be big man of the 
council and no appeal. I, in vain, told the City Council 
that no engineer, no money, existed to perform the large 
task correctly. The reply was a plat is demanded. 

I, on the morrow, procured instruments, and took to my 
aid Harry C. Fulton, and produced a proper profile of the 
situation, as demanded; no small task in an August sun, 
and laid it before the committee, who to this day never 
presented it, or their report to the City Council. 

Time dragged its slow length along, and on September 
1 2th, 1882, I called an extra session of the Council, known 
as the long and late session, and succeeded in passing the 
July right of way Ordinance; an ordinance that would 
never have been passed by the then twelve aldermen, had 
not Old I have been a member of the Council. I now hold 
a copy of that ordinance. 

At that period, a large number of Davenport's citizens, 
as well as farmers and villagers along the proposed line, 
went to work with energy to forward the work, and Engin- 
eer Mr. W. Lewis, of Davenport, kindl}- volunteered to go 
with me over the proposed line. I procured saddle horses 
from Mr. Hill's stable, and we passed through fields and 
wet sloughs, where long trains of commercial cars now 
eastward and westward speed. 

One instance of that pioneer journey I must name. 



42 

When a few miles northwest of the now Black Hawk out- 
let, passing through a barley field, viewing the proposed 
line, a loud voice came from a plowman on a distant hill- 
side, who had released his horses from the plow. Shout- 
ing "What are you doing in my barley field?" I replied 
with energy, "Building a railroad." The farmer retorted 
as he swiftly ran toward the house "I want no railroad. 
I am going to my house to get my gun and shoot you." 
We, by strategy, passed through a barbed wire fence be- 
yond gun range. Mr. W. Lewis became locating and first 
engineer of the line. 

As is well known to hundreds, I had, previous to the 
City's action, purchased timber and employed men, and in 
front of my office door on Perry Street made thousands of 
railroad stakes, and teamed them out, and along the line, 
all at my own cost. 

A tax of $100,000 was voted, of which I paid for myself 
and poor householders over $1,000. A contract was en- 
tered into with the worthy, the energetic but greatly 
wronged Williams and Flynn. Bonds were gotten up, but 
no sale for bonds without secure backing. 

Bncouraging progress on the road had been made when 
all funds were exhausted and a minority meeting of the 
Board of Directors assembled to endeavor to rig a purchase 
to raise money. The few assembled looked doleful, and 
declared that the extremity had been reached; a hopeless 
case; a lost cause. 

At this point, I volunteered to be one of twenty to, with- 
out delay, furnish one hundred thousand dollars to save 
the sinking road. A list was immediately made out, and 
in due season the large sum of money was produced, by 

the twenty. 

An extended line demanded iron and a construction 
train. Messrs. Williams and Flynn had made an advan- 
tageous contract for all the iron, provided that the construc- 
tion work came up to their standard, and no existing debts, 
and that the company was in a position to continue the 
work to completion. 



43 

One morning the Iron Company telegraphed the Secre- 
tary, Mr. Harry C. Fulton, that their experts would arrive 
in Davenport that noon-daj^ to inspect the grading and 
bridging and the company's books. 

That same morning Contractor Mr. Williams came in 
from the line to inform the company that he had complet- 
ed the entire work on all the line where the right of way 
had been secured, and that the farmers had forbidden him 
to enter on their land until the money agreed upon for 
the right of way had been paid to them; that within a few 
hours the Iron Work's experts would be on his line to see 
the deplorable condition; men standing and sitting around, 
unable to proceed for the want of less than two thousand 
dollars to procure right of way; that the sight of the then 
sad condition would be the death blow to the road. 

I well knew that those words, spoken by the greatly in- 
terested and excited Mr. Williams were too true; that the 
critical crisis had arrived; that one hour, one single hour, 
was the limit to decide the fate of the D. I. & D. I hast- 
ened to the President and several of the directors of the 
road, and pathetically laid before them the forlorn condition, 
and impending danger of the road. All, every one, ex- 
claimed "Not one dollar more." 

I then, with Mr. Harry C. Fulton, hastened to the First 
National Bank and stated the sad situation to Mr. James 
Thompson, and other officers of the Bank, and requested 
the loan of $2,000 with H. C. Fulton as securit}'. The 
money was, within five minutes, handed over to me, A 
fast team was procured, and Mr. Harrj^ C. Fulton, a Notar}^ 
with deeds that had been prepared speeded to the embargoed 
fields to purchase an entrance. One sub-contractor had 
but entered a field of growing corn that the Bank's money 
had paid $100 for, at twent}' cents per bushel for the esti- 
mated growing corn, but thirt}- minutes before the expert 
that was looking into the standing and paying capacity of 
the company arrived. Without a doubt the First National 
Bank of Davenport, by furnishing the $2,000 at that criti- 



44 

cal period, gave Davenport and Scott Count}' their fifth 
railroad; for without it not one rod of iron would have been 
delivered. Then the rains and winter's blasts would have 
leveled down the fills and washed out vast gullies in the 
cuts, and the bridges would have rotted down, or been 
spirited awa\', and grass and weeds would there have flour- 
ished supreme. This has been the fate of more extended 
and gigantic lines, in Iowa and in other states. 

In the sale of the D. I. & D. to the Burlington, Cedar 
Rapids and Northern, I received the $2,000 that I borrowed 
to pay the right of way, less the interest, that I paid the 
Bank, and in that one sided hasty sale, the worthy Williams 
& Flj'Un and their sub-contractors were greatly wronged. 
I, alone, as one of the Directory, protested against the act, 
and unsuspecting I, as one of the one hundred thousand 
dollar contributors, was also wronged, not commercially, 
but through the prayers and falsehoods of the low down 
end of the B. C. R. & N. Directory. 

There can be a wrong in trivial acts even in misrepre- 
senting values or in cutting a telegraph wire that is the 
property of another. Suppose a man in early spring places 
a grain of corn within the earth; it springs up, he hoes and 
waters the growing stock, and looks with pleasure toward 
earl}^ autumn, when he shall feast upon the ear it bears, 
but when autumn comes, a man slips in through the back 
gate and steals the ear of corn and eats it. Would you 
not consider him a very mean man thus to steal the prod- 
uct of another's industry. 

Once on a time a person called Judas obtained some 
pieces of silver through his acquaintance with another, and 
great fault has been found with Judas ever since he got 
those pieces of silver. 

STREET RAILROAD. 

In 1865, when street railroads in the West were in their 
infancy, I visited Philadelphia, at large cost to myself, to 
gain knowledge of their cost, construction and operation, 
and consult contractors. On ni}^ return, I opened a stock 



45 

list and headed it with many dolkirs. After making fair 
progress in procuring stock, I, on October 4th, 1S65, applied 
to the City Council for the right to create and operate a 
horse railroad between the eastern and western limits of 
the City on Third Street. 

The Davenport City Council Records, of October 4th, 
1865, says a regular meeting of the City Council J. L. 
Davies, Mayor. The petition of A. C. Fulton to grant 
him the privilege to build a horse railroad on Third Street 
was referred to the Street committee. 

This was the first move, or application to create a street 
railroad on the streets of the state of Iowa. The stock was 
raised and articles of incorporation signed April 29, 1867. 

Not a member of the Council took any interest in the 
undertaking, and but three shares of stock, $300, was taken 
by the entire body of City officials, from Mayor to Janitor, 
and a majority cried "Fulton wants to rob the people of a 
street!" I could but reply that I desired to give the people 
their choice between the street and my mule cars, conse- 
quently ni}^ application long lingered, and some members 
of the Council at the onset exclaimed "Never!" 

The long delay and difficult}' that caused me great trouble, 
was that then, as since that day, men were put into office 
who did not know enough to carry a bundle in a car. 

I issued a notice of the incorporation of the Davenport 
City Railroad Company, on April 29th, 1867. '^^^ incorpor- 
ators and the first board of Directors and its Officers were: 
John L. Swits, Ira M. Gifford, Thomas Scott, Chas, B. Put- 
nam, Joseph Shields, H. H, Claussen, James Armstrong, 
B. B. Woodward, Treasurer, A. C. Fulton, President. 

The contract was let to Mr. Charles Hathawa, of Phila- 
delphia. England called on this American, Mr. Charles 
Hathawa, to build England's first horse railroad on the 
streets of London. 



46 

GAS, LIGHT & COKE COMPANY. 

In 1854, I negotiated with Antoine Le Claire for two 
town lots, at the northeast corner of Third and Le Claire 
Streets for a Gas Works, and during that year, a company 
was organized. The works were put in operation on Oct- 
ober 25th, 1855; William Herrick; of Cleveland, Ohio, 
Manager. 

The product of electricity, the Milton Sanders Light is 
now, as predicted by the w'ise and great, in 1844, becoming 
the light of the world. Milton Sanders was the brother of 
Editors Alfred and Add Sanders, of Davenport, and a native 
of Ohio. 

AMERICAN GENIUS. 

On September 4th, 1891, 1 addressed the Scientific Amer- 
ican through the Chicago Inter Ocean, to right a great 
wrong done to worth and genius. 

ANTIQUITY OF ELECTRIC LIGHT. 



// li^as Invented by an American in 1844. 

Davenport, Iowa, Aug. 10, 1891, — To the Editor. — 
The Scientific American of Jul}^ 11, 1891, publishes this: 

Antiquity of the Electric Light. — (From the Scien- 
tific American Dec. 9, 1848). — "New Electric Light — The 
inventors of a new electric light exhibited at the Western 
Literary Institute, Leicester, on its recent reopening un- 
der new auspices, expect, it is said, to appl}^ it generally to 
shop and street illumination, and they state that while the 
conveying will cost no more than gas the expense of illumin- 
ation will be one-twelfth the price of the later light." 

T\vQ: Scientific Ame?-ica)i o{ i^^d> names Messrs Staite 
and Peterie, of England, as the inventors of this new light. 

This is a great error and can be shown to be such. 
There is not a shadow of doubt but that the then well- 
known chemist, Milton Sanders, was the inventor of our 
present electric light. Not in 1848 but in 1844. And 
sold his discovery to Mr. Staite of England. The merits 



47 

of Mr. Sanders' light, were thoroughly tested in Newport, 
Kentucky, and in Cincinnati in 1844, and the opinion of 
men of science given. 

Editor Charles Crist, of Cincinnati, the well-known sta- 
tistician, published the prediction in 1844, that the Sanders' 
light would become the light of the world at no distant 
day. 

Mr. Sanders' confidence in his light was unbounded, but 
his capital at that day was limited. He resolved to go to 
England and introduce his light. He contracted with his 
chief workman, Mr. John Starr, and on the 17th of Feb- 
ruary, 1845, s^t sail for Liverpool in the packet Oxford. 

He exhibited his light in London, on a magnificent 
scale, and proposed to light that city. The authorities de- 
clined to abandon their gas for the new light. Mr. San- 
ders' cherished hopes being blighted he sold his Dynamos 
machiney and invention, and turned his artist, Mr. Starr, 
over to a Mr. Staite. 

In the latter part of 1848 word arrived in America that 
a Mr. Staite was exhibiting a wonderful light which he 
had invented. 

This statement was published in the Scientific Ameri- 
can and other journals. 

Upon which Mr. vSanders, in April 1849, wrote to the 
Cairo Dalta as follows: 

"The light is of my own invention, and belongs to no 
other person. I invented it in Newport, Ky., in the fall 
of 1844. This Mr. Staite who is now exhibiting the light 
and lecturing about it, is the very man to whom the light 
was sold." 

The above published facts are now before me. (Cairo 
was then the competitor of Chicago for the ascendency.) 

Mr. John Starr died in England in February, 1849, and 
with him died the English end of the electric light. 

Mr. Staite was not an electrician, but the showman, the 
Barnuni. I ask The Inter Ocean to do justice to America, 
to genius and the dead. A. C. Fulton. 



48 

I watched this, the second greatest invention, or discov- 
ery, of the nineteenth centur3% with close attention, and 
therefore could write to the Inter Ocean knowingly, as is 
published in its number of September 4th, 1891. 

THE GREAT THE GRAND ROCK ISLAND ARvSENAL. 

Thousands of the present easy-going slow, do not care, 
do not know, community of this day, suppose and speak 
as though the vast institution, the Rock Island Arsenal, 
mushroom like, sprang from chaos. Not so. It was pro- 
duced through long and hard work and untiring energy, 
and located in a wilderness in opposition to every town 
north and south of the island, and the whole community 
on the Ohio River, together with their members of Con- 
gress. 

At this da}^, 1902, imprudent crank headed strikers, who 
through their uncalled for acts, bring want and distress on 
their wives and little ones, and blight the progress of the 
world, are now endeavoring to kick the grand, the great 
institution, and its efficient officers around as a foot ball. 
But mark! In time those deliberate, inrprudent acts will 
recoil on the unwise with the fur}' of a cyclone, and bring 
with it unheard of distress and misery. 

Troops under the command of Col. Lawrence made a 
landing on Rock Island, on the loth of IMay, 181 6, and 
they immediately went to work cutting timber to build 
Fort Armstrong, and warehouses. Several thousand In- 
dians were located near the island; some within sight. 

territorial days. the davenport democrat. 

Rock Island Arsenal. 



'"''Vl^hen Davenpoj^tcrs Ahnost Gave Up Their Jight for the 
Arsenal^ the Sioux Were Killing People Doivn Aroiind 
Burlington — Incidents the Pioneer Still Remembers^ 
Davenport, la., March 23. — (Editor of The Democrat). 

— The Davenport Gazette of March 23, 1843, Alfred San- 

ers, editor, publishes as follows: 



49 

ICE IN THE RIVER. 

"The ice in the river is becoming quite dangerous, ow- 
ing to the numerous fissures caused by the falling of the 
water. Ice in this situation is more to be avoided than if 
thin and pliable, as a team is liable at any moment to drop 
through, by the sudden breaking of the ice previously 
cracked. Several accidents have occurred within a few days, 
and again we caution the people to beware of venturing 
too much upon it, particularly in the traveled road." 

"The Burlington Gazette gives intelligence of the mur- 
der of two of its citizens — L. W. Babbit and Washington 
Jones — by the Sioux Indians and of the wounding of a 
third named Buckhalter. The unfortunate men were upon 
a trading expedition." 

CENSUS OF ST. LOUIS. 

"By a census just completed it appears that St. Louis 
contains a population of 28,357 souls. As follows: — White 
males 13,770, females, 11,726; colored males, free, 253; fe- 
males, 431; male slaves 932, female slaves 1249." 

WESTERN ARMORY. 

"From the following, taken from the St. Louis New Era 
of the nth inst., it would appear that Fort Massac, the 
rumored point, is after all the favored spot for the location 
of the armory. Mr. Casey, member of congress from 
Illinois, writes that the commissioners have reported in 
favor of Fort Massac for the location of the Western armory; 
that the president is in favor of that location, thinking it 
the best point in the West. Mr. Casey believes that the 
armory will be located at Fort Massac." 

When this stunning blow struck Davenport, it created a 
sensation that could be felt, and every worker in the Fort 
Armstrong arsenal cause, threw up the sponge of defeat, 
in despair, save one. Had all then dropped into suppineness, 
no Rock Island Arsenal would this day be known to the 
world. 

For 58 years have I preserved this Iowa journal, that the 



50 

people of a new world could look upon the footprints and 
the press prints of long departed time. Respectfully yours, 

.A. C. Fulton. 

ROCK IvSI^AND ARvSENAL. 



A. C. Fulion^ One of the Appraisers oj the Davenport 
Homestead^ Tells hoiu Rock Island IVas Eventu- 
ally Preserved as a Government Res- 
ervation 

Davenport, Iowa, May ii, 1901. — To the Editor of the 
Democrat: Plainly written incidents respecting the cre- 
ation of the famous Rock Island Arsenal, may be of some 
interest to the new people of this day. 

On March 23rd last, I wrote your Democrat that com- 
missioners appointed by the government to select a location 
for a western armory had, in March, 1843, rejected our 
Rock Island in favor of Fort Massac, on the Ohio river, 
and that President John Tjder coincided with the com- 
mission. 

In view of the fact that President JNIcKinley will visit 
the then rejected island, I desire as history, to say that the 
Davenport Gazette of March 30th, 1843, ^^^w before me, 
published as follows: 

vSALE OF ROCK ISLAND. 

By an advertisement in the St. Louis Republican we 
perceive that the above island, reserved for a military site, 
will be offered for sale at public auction at the city of St. 
Louis on the first day of June next. It contains about 895 
acres of valuable land, based on solid limestone, and has a 
mean elevation of about 30 feet above low water. 

It will be sold in tracts, or parcels, as follows: 

Tract No. i. — All that part of said island which lies 
east of the north and south quarter .section No. 30, town- 
ship 18, north range i west of the fourth principal meridian, 
which quarter section line crosses the island from shore 
to shore. 

This tract contains 353 acres more or less. 



51 

Tract No. 2. — All that part of said island which lies 
between the above mentioned quarter section line, and the 
north and south line which crosses said island and divides 
township 18, north range i, west, from township 18, north 
range 2, west. 

This tract contains 228^ acres, more or less. 

Tract No. 3. — All that part of said island which lies be- 
tween said township line, and a line crossing said island 
and forming the north and south quarter section lines of 
sections 25 and 36, of towmship 18, north range, 2 west. 

This tract contains about 222^4^ acres. 

Tract No. 4. — All that part of said island lying west of 
the last mentioned quarter section lines, containing 92 
acres, more or less, with the buildings thereon. 

The terms of payment will be one-third of purchase money 
at time of sale, balance in two equal annual installments, 
with interest. 



When the sad news arrived, on March 23, 1843, ^^^t 
Rock Island had been rejected by the commissioners, all 
thought it to be hope forlorn. I immediately wrote, the 
best I could, to President T3der, and various departments 
at Washington, but did not receive au}^ answer; wrote to 
the Hon. Mr. Casey, an Illinois member of congress, who 
was the chief worker in the arsenal cause, and wrote to 
Senator Charles M. Conrad of Louisiana. Hon. Casey 
wrote that all hope had vanished through the decision of 
the commissioners and the president. 

The Hon. Charles M. Conrad, for whom I had performed 
a small service in the early 30s, and who had then declared 
that he would store the recollection within his memory as 
long as recollection held a seat within him, immediately 
wrote me from Washington that he had entered on his task, 
and all that man could perform would be performed by him. 

Fortunately, in July, 1850, Hon. Conrad came into pow- 
er as President Fillmore's secretary of war. He went to 
work and never ceased until crowned b}^ success. Reso- 
lution is omnipotent! 



52 

There is herein a great opportunity for serious thought. 
Had that one single man, the Hon. Charles M. Conrad, 
never been created, then never, never would any arsenal 
island be known to the world. 

Never would hundreds of thousands of Uncle Sam's dol- 
lars be paid out here. 

Never would the nation's chief magistrate even have 
thought of visiting the wild fruit island of that day, that 
he will now visit to see where the nation's sinews of defence 
and offence are created. 

Never would thousands of journals, in this year 1901, 
have heralded the grand march of progress within this then 
wild section of creation. Never, never! 

The writer was one of the three amicably selected govern- 
ment appraisers of the George Davenport land on the island. 

Time's clock told its many hours up to July, 1862, 
before the extensive arsenal works, as now, were officially 
permitted to exist. Respectfully yours, 

A. C. Fulton. 

THEN AND NOW. 

In the Forties and the early Fifties, we had a vast number 
of roads to locate with their numerous bridges. The three 
County Commissioners superintended all work, no extra 

pay. 

The records witness that during the year 1851, the 
County Commissioners, E. S. Wing, I. W. Wiley and A. 
C. Fulton received but $91.50 and the entire pay of the 
Commissioner's Court from the year 1847 up ^^ ^^^ Y^^r 
1852, being four years, was but $452.50. Judge J. F. 
Dillon was clerk of the last session. 

THE LONG PAST. 

I will roll up the curtain of time and present the long 
past. 

In 1798, our navy consisted of three frigates, twelve 
slopes of war, seven armed cutters, and many of our merch- 
ant-men carried heavy guns and extra crews for an emerg- 
ency. 



53 



CONGRESSIONAL HALLS. 



The first Continental Congress met at Philadelphia on 
the 5th of September, 1774. On December 12th, 1776, 
Congress assembled in Baltimore. On September 2 7tli, 
1777 at Lancaster, Pennsylvania. In December, 1783, 
Congress assembled at Annapolis, Maryland. On Novem- 
ber ist, 1784, at Trenton, New Jersey, On January nth, 
1785, assembled in New York. On July i6th, 1790, Con- 
gress decided to establish the seat of government at Phila- 
delphia for ten years, and at the end of that time to perni- 
anentl}^ locate at some point on the Potomac River, and our 
Congress held its first session at Washington, D. C. in 
1800, after being for many years driven around b}^ the 
armed British and their Hessian allies. 

IOWA. 

The first settlement in Iowa was made b}- Julian Du 
Buque, on the 22nd of September, 1788. He purchased 
from the Indians the land where now stands the City of 
Dubuque. The lead mines there existing was the induce- 
ment. After the death of Du Buque, in 18 10, the Win- 
nebagoes, Sacs, and Fox Indians drove the few white miners 
east over the Mississippi River. 

THE PROVINCE OF LOUISIANA. 

Under the administration of President Jefferson, Minis- 
ter Livingston closed a treaty with Napoleon the ist, on 
the 30th day of April, 1803, for the purchase of the province 
of Louisiana, for the sum of $15,000,000, and upon Decem- 
ber 20th, 1803, the vast province was officially delivered to 
Governor Claborne, of Mississippi, and General Wilkin- 
son, amidst the waving of banners and the thunder of artil- 
lery at New Orleans, 

On March 20th, 1804, this territory was divided into two 
provinces; the Southern was called the Province of Orleans, 
and the Northern, Louisiana. The dividing line was at 
Chickasaw Bluffs. 

Then came Captain Lewis and Lieutenant Clark, under 



54 

the authority of President Jefferson, to make their extraord- 
inary exploring expedition through the vast West, and 
over untrodden mountains, and onward to the Pacific Ocean. 

Those intrepid explorers, with their chosen aids, set out 
from the junction of the Mississippi and Missouri Rivers, 
on May 14th 1804. A portion of the party took boats with 
sails and oars on the Missouri River, and the other portion 
explored the Iowa shore line, taking bearings and platting 
the adjacent territory. They reached the Pacific on the 
17th of November, 1805, and their return journey was be- 
gun on the 27th of March, 1806. 

Burlington was the first town laid off in Iowa. It was 
surve3^ed and platted in November, 1833. The first news- 
paper published in Iowa was the "Dubuque Visitor," in 
1836. The second was the "Iowa Sun," at Davenport, 
Andrew Logan, editor, who issued the "Sun" on August 
4th, 1838. 

THE ASCENDENCY. 

I rehearse to you those historical occurrences, which at 
a distant period will possess a value, because no man that 
lives can correctly rehearse them to 3'Ou; from their incip- 
iency down to date; nor has that man ever died. It should 
be so, for I trained for over eighty years for the ascen- 
dency. The superficial wall cry a mere bagatelle; not so 
with the wise and great. 

I should know the distant past as well as the present 
day, for I lived and passed through more than fourteen 
years of the reign of Czar Alexander I, of Russia through 
the cessation caused by Constantine; the entire reign of 
Nicholas I., the reign of Alexander II., the reign of Alex- 
ander III., and I am now counting off and placing on my 
diarj^ the years of Russia's sixth ruler of my day, Nicho- 
las II. 

I lived and passed through more than a decade of the 
reign of Napoleon I. of France; passed through the entire 
reign of Louis XVIII., the reign of Charles X., the reign 
of King Louis Phillipe, the reign of Napoleon III., and 



55 

have witnessed thirty 3'ears of the French republic. 

I passed through a decade of the reign of George III. 
of England, through the reign of George IV., and the 
reign of William IV., and sixtj^-four years of the reign 
of Queen Victoria, and am now counting off the years of 
the reign of Edward VII. 

I passed through a decade of the reign of Kamehameha 
I. of the kingdom of Hawaii; passed through the entire 
reign of Kamehameha II., the reign of Kamehameha III., 
the reign of Kamehameha IV., the reign of Kamehameha 
v., through the reign of King Lunalilo, the reign [of his 
Majesty King David Kalakaua; passed through the re- 
genc}^ of two of Hawaii's queens, passed through the 
reign and the dethronement of Queen Lydia Liliuakalani, 
to give place to President Dole's Hawaiian Republic, in 
July, 1894, which I am now yearly entering on ni}' eighty 
years diary. And may the energetic president's sunset 
be remote. 

Yes, in my day have three queens reigned in Hawaii, 
and seven dusky monarchs have there wielded their scep- 
tre, and have been placed within the roj^al mausoleum, 
with great sorrow to Sailor I. 

I have tipped ni}^ hat to General Lafayette and to Mex- 
co's first president, and Emperor Iturbide, and I was high- 
ly favored during the first administration of James Madi- 
son. Death maj- call him who wears a diadem and spare 
the man of the humble walks of life. 

The old pioneer's duty and object is to tell of his work 
and his acts in the distant past, and also to show how he 
stood in the working field, and in the field of knowledge. 
Counting age by the average work of man, I have lived 
many years over three centuries, and I am now working 
with more than one extensive task before me. The small 
brained and unbalanced will exclaim that the old sailor's 
egotism is unbounded. Their vision and minds are con- 
tracted, and I greatly pity their sad condition. The}- can- 
not fathom the mind and soul that extends and explores 



56 

through earth, through ether and through realms above. 

AMERICA THE MOTHER OF ART. 

An American discovered that the air and the clouds 
were the storehouse of electricity. America invented and 
produced the first steamboat, the first steam man-of-war, 
the first aqueduct and iron bridge, the torpedo, the cotton 
gin, the sewing machine, the reaper, the mower, the horse 
rake, the steam threshing machine, the steam plow, the 
telegraph, the telephone, the knitting machine, the Atlan- 
tic cable, the Hoe power printing press, the electric light, 
the typewriter, the phonograph, and a vast number of 
other inventions and discoveries too numerous to mention 
in my report. Hail Columbia, child of Science, parent of 
useful Arts, dear country, hail! 

EXTENT OF TERRITORY AND THE MARCH OF PROGRESS. 

Our great Mississippi between its outlet at the Gulf of 
Mexico and its source in the distant heights of the North, 
and the Alleghenies on the East, and the Rocky Moun- 
tains on the West, drains an area greater than England, 
France, Germany, Holland, and Belgium combined, and is 
possessed by a people prepared to test their energy and abil- 
ity in all that is useful to 'man with the people of any 
quarter of the globe. 

It was but 3^esterday that this territory was an untrodden 
wilderness; we faced every hardship and privation, and 
here planted the Stars and Stripes to stay, and fearlessly 
laid the foundations of our domiciles on its fertile plains. 

NOW IN DAVENPORT'S SIXTH WARD. 

Before I drop time's curtain, I must present a few more 
scenes in frontier and territorial daj^s. During the M-inter 
of 1842, several hundred Sac and Fox Indians camped in the 
contracted valley between the present Catholic Bishop's 
mansion and St. Katharine's Hall. On the third of the fol- 
lowing April one of the tribe that I had aided during the 
winter informed me that they would that day break camp 
to journe}' to their more permanent home near the Wapsi- 



57 

pincon River, just west of the Indian line of 1837. I had 
a great desire to witness the departure of the Indians, as I 
felt it to be the last departure of the Red man of the forest 
and the plain from this his home for many centuries, and 
at the same time I desired to reconnoiter the adjacent ter- 
ritory of now Hast Davenport, both of which I did with great 
interest. The most noted feature of the act of breaking 
camp and packing up was the silent and systematic action 
of the whole tribe. No seventy-four-gun-ship command 
and bluster, but all in silent concert moving as does a print- 
ing press, and as his Eastern kin, the Arab, silently stole 
away. 

To again attempt as near as possible to witness the 
scenes of 1843, ^ stood on a pinnacle looking down on this 
Indian camping ground of 1842. But alas! the domes of 
three colleges and the mansions of two bishops were in 
sight, and the spires of ten churches pointed toward the 
blue sky, whilst in the front and on both the flanks of my 
position street-cars, propelled by the power of electricity, 
coursed before me and two long trains of passenger and 
freight cars shook the earth as they speeded past in the 
rear. 

Facts may eclipse fiction's wildest imagination. 

Goodness! what a change of scenes on life's stage during 
the short period of fifty-nine years! I now constantl}^ feel 
that I must take my stand of 1843, and witness the aston- 
ishing change that has taken place. 

Since that day, April the third, 1843, ''^^ter being the 
lone pale face witness of the retreating Red man, I ex- 
tended my journey to what was known in territorial days 
as Stubb's Eddy. This is the horseshoe bend formed by 
the rising bluff land, where now stands Lindsay & Phelp's 
saw mill and stores and dwellings. Within this East 
Davenport horseshoe bend rose in solitude a sand and earth 
mound of a sugar-loaf shape. Grass and dwarf hazel bush- 
es lined its regular and artistically formed sides. I had 
more than once explored the Mississippi from its many 



58 

mouths at the Gulf to its contracted limits beyond the 
Falls of St. Anthony, and the East Davenport sugar-loaf 
mound was to me the greatest curiosity that I noted. 
Not many years since Lindsay and Phelps removed this 
mound's remaining height of some twenty feet to place an 
uninteresting pile of lumber on its resting place of many 
thousands of years, where the whirling waters had formed 
it. This mound was not the only wonder of Hast Daven- 
port, for its south base was burrowed into and a one-roomed 
habitation was almost concealed in the excavation, and with- 
in which for many years before and thereafter resided, as 
a hermit, Mr. James R. Stubbs, one of West Point's early 
graduates, a learned man of extraordinary ability. On 
rough shelves overhead rested rare scientific and other 
works of ancient authors. Mr. Stubbs was Scott's County 
second magistrate whilst he resided at his hermit home 
(Mr. Antoine LeClaire being the first). He held his court 
in the rear of Mr. James A. Tellfair's saddle shop on Main 
street below Second street. Mr. Stubbs was one of the 
class of men that carry their library and intelligence into 
the wilderness; one of the class that the intelligent world 
respects and reverences, whether an inhabitant of an Hast 
Davenport sand mound or a palace. The young officer in 
1818 got leave of absence from Fort Armstrong, to visit 
his once Cincinnati home. He there made a life engage- 
ment with the belle of that town, who broke the contract 
and threw the young officer overboard. He felt the fall 
severely and returned to our Arsenal Island to resign, and 
to throw off his gay apparel and assume a buckskin garb 
of somber hue, and take to a hermit's cell in the mound at 
the Eddy's bend. 

Mr. Stubbs was delighted to find a learned person who 
would seat himself on one of his split-timber stools and 
who took an interest in philosophy and astronomy; then 
the hermit would carry his guest into the ethereal world 
and name the fixed stars and explain the transit of Venus. 

As all well know, the ancients placed this class of men 
in the ranks of the gods. But Mr. Stubbs was earthly, 



59 

for the County Records, Book A, page 310, says that the 
United States on July 6th, 1840, sold to James R, Stubbs 
eighty acres of land, which is in our East Davenport and 
north of his mound home. 

The old city had its historic brimstone corner and the 
new city had its philosopher's cavern home, and both 
possessed their attractions and had 'their votaries; and as 
all well know, the same star of wilderness days now in 
1901 continues to dictate and control within its sphere. 

To do justice to Hermit Stubbs' great ability as a scholar 
would require pages, not columns, and would require greater 
ability to produce the pages than Sailor I possess. 

Book G, of records, at page 310, says; A. C. Fulton, on 
March 12, 1848, purchased 160 acres of land between the 
hermit's cell land and the west line of the now water works 
stand. Within this purchase to Fulton is located the 
Cable saw-mill property, the water works, and the Demo- 
crat Farm, together with hundreds of dwellings extending 
beyond Locust street. The whole 160 acres was in its 
wilderness state — not a mark of civilization save the wag- 
on tracks on the Territorial Road. I immediately and 
personally dug holes in its sward of ages and planted 
some fruit trees and grape vines on the north side of the 
present Richardson's dwellings and built a tenement 
house near my Eldorado Spring, which house and two 
acres of ground became the propert}^ of a slave woman who 
had a histor3^ This spring of the hermit and philosopher, 
Mr. Stubbs, greatly appreciated, as also did two lone deer 
that the settlers would not molest and which were fre- 
quently seen on the sides and summits of the East Daven- 
port hills. 

Book of Records, I, at page 623 says: A. C. Fulton, on 
June 21, 1852, purchased from Peter Perry (who was a 
member of the Canadian Parliament and a refugee) two 
hundred acres of land between the now water works and 
the LeClaire reserve. Consideration $10,000. 

The lands on the river front, west of the township line 



6o 

and west of tlie water works, and which extended west- 
ward to LeClaire's Reserve and north to Locnst street, 
were taken np by a Mr. Ben. Buck, who built a squatter's 
claim house of a very fair quality upon it, on or near the 
south side of Hast River Road. This one-roomed house 
was the first built in Hast Davenport, as it was commenced 
a few days after the Indian treaty parting with those lands. 
I erected the three next following'. 

On this Peter Perr}' land I erected what is now Mr. 
Nutting's mansion, and three small brick dwellings on the 
bluff. I burned the lime for those buildings with wood 
cut on the ground and stone from what is now Prospect 
park. Then came my erection of the first steam sash, 
blind and door factory in the state, now known as the 
Gould Furniture Factory, and the erection of the far-famed 
Mount Ida followed, previous to the stone mansion at Front 
street and Bridge avenue. The bricks in Mount Ida were 
dug from its basement and burned with wood that sur- 
rounded it. My goodness! what work to make a world! 
Yet I have not told one-third of my part, in which I would 
have to say that I erected thirty-nine buildings in three of 
Iowa's counties, four extensive factories in the count. 

On that ever-to-be-remembered third day of April, 1843, 
when I visited the Indian camp to witness their final de- 
parture, in sadness, from their long and once sacred home 
where the spirits of their fathers rested, and I also con- 
ferred with the philosophic Stubbs at his mound abode, I 
on my journey to my Davenport home approached the long 
deserted Ben Buck land claim one-roomed house and found 
it occupied by a family. But O my! what a sight of dis- 
tress, want and miser}^ presented itself before me! On a 
rough, uncomfortable bed in one corner of the small room 
lay a distressed-looking and very sick mother, hardly able 
to totter across the room when she arose from her couch of 
poverty. On a dingy straw tick with a tattered bedspread 
in the opposite corner, on the rough split-log floor, lay a 
flaxen haired and blue eyed little girl, just three years of age, 



6i 

whose sunken eyes and pale, wan face spoke of dissolution. 
No nione}^ no food was within the wretched home save about 
one peck of small wilted potatoes and a hard piece of old 
looking corn bread. The woman said the}^ had first come 
from Indiana, then from Illinois, and had taken shelter in 
the lone house six days previously when broken down 
through want and fatigue; that her husband had gone up 
the river to Pleasant Valley to look for work and food, and 
that she looked for his return on the coming day. 

The little innocent did not speak, but its mother thirsted 
for water. I took a leak}^ wooden bucket without any 
handle, tightened its slack hoops, and went to the river 
and got a bucket of pure water. I then marched on the 
double quick to the then small city, purchased an abundance 
of the most suitable food that I could think of, and some 
matches and tallow candles to give light, got a horse and 
buggy and hastened to the sick. The little child refused 
all food or drink and its mother could take but very little, 
yet I thought, with great benefit. 

My ancient and ever friend Neriod whispered me to lin- 
ger for a period on watch, and as the bright April sun was 
just bidding the world good night the little innocent cast 
its eyes toward the sick mother, gavfe a gasp and winged 
itself to heaven. This was the first pale-face death and 
funeral that took place east of Rock Island street, within 
the now cit}- limits. I placed the tattered bed spread and 
the little body on a rough bench, and with sadness went to 
my home, and on the morrow procured its grave, coffin 
and suitable apparel, which Mrs. Fulton put in form. We 
got a carriage and a Miss Sophia Fisher, whose Philadelphia 
parent, Samuel Fisher, erected and resided in the attrac- 
tive mansion on our Brady street which was not very long 
since demolished to make room for the present block where 
stands the United States Express office, and journeyed to 
the wretched abode. The two ladies dressed the blue-e}- ed 
departed and placed it in its narrow home. Its sick mother 
could not leave her humble home and we performed the final 
sad act. 



62 

The cheeks of the three strange mourners were pallid 
and tears of sorrow flowed from their eyes when the little 
innocent, cold in death, reached the dark and damp bottom 
of its untimely grave, and silent prayers were offered up to 
the Great Supreme. 

Singular would it be if in the estimation of the spirits 
of the Good and Great, that the simplicity of the life and 
the solemnity of the funeral of this half-starved child of 
Iowa's rugged frontier should eclipse that of those who re- 
ceive towering monuments and of those who wore a diadem. 

THE FIRST MOVE TOWARD PROSPERITY. 

Davenport's First Factory. That checked its downfall 
and gave it new life. 

Up to 1848, Davenport had no flouring mill, but there 
was an abundance of good wheat in ware-houses. The main 
dependence was a single pair of small bur stones in the loft 
of a saw-mill at Moline, and in winter many valuable teams 
and sometimes the whole outfit were lost beneath the 
River's ice. 

In 1846, apathy and dullness prevailed in Davenport 
and Scott County; no work, no money. The small sums 
of money that the pioneers had brought with them was ex- 
hausted and very little came in. It was very difficult to 
procure money to pay taxes, and Davenport was being 
rapidl}^ deserted. Sheep and cattle took possession of 
some of the down town houses. Grass and weeds were 
growing in the streets. Some of the streets did not even 
show a wagon track, and gloom rested on the face of 
many. 

To bring mone}^ in and secure flour for home consump- 
tion, I called a meeting in D. C. Eldridge's post office in 
the basement of the LeClaire House at Third and Main 
Streets. 

Ever}' man of means attended, and two women. Work 
and material were cheap, and I proposed as per ni}^ esti- 
mate to erect a $10,000 Merchant Mill. All agreed to 
this and a list for mone}' was instantl}' opened, but not 



63 

one-fourth of the $10,000 was subscribed. I then proposed 
to furnish one-half of the mone}^ if the balance of the town 
would furnish the other half. The list was renewed but 
did not produce one-half of the remainder, and all de- 
clared that they had done their best. 

I then proposed to perform the act alone, if Mr. Le 
Claire and the city would deed me the now Packet Com- 
pany's Block for $1,600. All cried, "yes!" The pre- 
siding officer queried, "When will you commence work?" 
I answered, "Tomorrow morning at six o'clock." I ful- 
filled my promise, went to work and built two first-class 
mills, and the expensive wharf, the only landing that this 
whole communit}" has had during fifty-three years. 

To build a secure wharf at that point required a vast 
quantity of stone. I rigged a stone barge with sails, and 
took advantage of the winds and commanded in person 
with unskilled hands. 

When I sold a portion of that block, I plainly reserved 
a portion of that wharf and landing for my owni, and made 
a discount of $300 for the act and extended the wharf at 
large cost. But when the railroads required the wharf 
and river front, and the money was to be paid for it, the 
sapient City Attorne}/ converted himself into Judge, jury 
and Clerk of the Court, and gave ni}- hard earned money 
to a new-comer in Chicago. 

To give the names of Davenport's prominent citizens of 
over a half century past, every one of whom have departed 
from this earth, I here copy from the "Davenport Gazette." 

THE GAZETTE. 
ALFRED SANDERS, EDITOR. 



DAVENPORT. 
THURSDAY MORNING, JANUARY 20, 1 848. 



FIRST vSTEAM MILL IN DAVENPORT. 

Last Saturday was a busy and a happy day for Daven- 
port — one from which may be dated a new era in the his- 
tory of our thriving town. Upon that day was first heard 



64 

in Davenport the welcome notes of steam as applied to 
manufacturing. Fulton's steam mill was put in operation 
and found to succeed in every department — five months and 
twenty-two days since the foundation was dug to the mill, 
and two weeks later, the carpenters' work was commenced. 
At that time the bricks were yet unmade, and the timber 
growing in the forest, and the stone reposing in the quarry. 
— Although absent a portion of the time, and under con- 
tract to finish the extensive brick mill of Messrs. Burrows 
and Pretty man, adjoining, yet with an energy worthy a 
descendant of Robert Fulton, Mr. A. C. Fulton has, within 
less than six months from its commencement, got his mill 
in successful operation. 

The machinery and castings were made at the Kagle 
Foundry of Messrs. Garrison & Brother, of St. Louis; and 
the Mill Stones by G. & C. Todd, of St. Louis. 

In honor to the enterprise exhibited by Mr. A. C. Ful- 
ton and the exertions of his men, the citizens determined 
on Saturday morning to give them a public dinner, and 
with a celerity scarcely excelled in the speedy completion 
of the mill, bj^ three o'clock had every viand to tempt the 
palate arranged on a temporary table in the second story 
of the mill. Turkeys, chickens, hams, tongues, etc., and 
pies, cakes, and biscuits made from the new flour, graced 
the table in abundance. Mr. Fulton and his workmen 
took their place at the table, when three cheers were given 
the former. Mr. F, followed in a brief address stating the 
embarrassments under which he had labored, and over 
which he had triumphed; alluding particularly to the im- 
mense barrier to the prosperity of Davenport presented by 
the Lower Rapids, hoping that all would unite their ex- 
ertions to have the impediment removed. 

So soon as he had concluded the citizens were requested 
to take their places at table, when the work of mastication 
begun. Chickens disappeared as rapidly from the well 
stored table as though Herr Alexander presided, and tur- 
keys galvanized into new life walked off by piecemeal, 



65 

while cakes, crackers, and biscuits, imbibing the electrical 
spirit, again passed quickly through the grinders. It was 
a joyous time and after between 200 and 300 persons had 
dined, more than "seven basketsful" were left. 

Judge Grant being called upon, gavea short speech. He 
stated that he had just arrived from Iowa City — previous 
to leaving that city a charter had been granted for the 
construction of a railroad from this point to Council Bluffs. 
Three cheers greeted this announcement. Mr. H. Price 
next addressed the assembly. In his remarks he stated 
that when the workmen first commenced the foundation of 
the mill, an old gentleman observed to him, "that he had 
always believed Mr. Fulton to be crazy, but now he knew 
it." Mr. McCammon also addressed the people, when the 
following toasts were given, some of them accompanied by 
remarks and all followed by loud cheering. After which 
the citizens retired quietly to their homes well pleased 
with the afternoon's entertainment: 

By A. Sanders — A. C. Fulton and his men — May every 
revolution of the mill stones add a dime to their wealth 
and a good deed to their lives. 

H. Price — the Mill and Dinner, both got up on their 
electro-magnetic principle, characteristic of the American 
people — may we never lack for either. 

W. P. Campbell — Success to Fulton aud his mill; the 
first propelled by enterprise, the last by steam — may they 
continue to go until the father of waters ceases to flow. 

V. M. Firor — A. C. Fulton — the propellor of enterprise 
and cotemporary with steam in Davenport, may he never 
lack fuel for his own boiler; while with iron nostrils and 
leaden bowels, may he whiten the earth with the flour of 
his zeal. 

J. Grant — The big gentleman at the other end of the 
table, (A. LeClaire, Esq.) "may his shadow never be less." 

J. Pope — The Aetna Mill and its Proprietor — May the 
former never repudiate for the want of wheat, nor the latter 
for the want of friends. 



66 

A. Sanders — Fulton's Steam Mill, the nucleus of a man- 
ufacturing emporium. 

J. Parker — The Rival Steam Mills of Davenport, While 
we most cordially award all due honor and praise to A. C. 
Fulton, the enterprising originator of both mills, and the 
successful builder of this mill, may the only rivalship that 
shall hereafter exist between them be, which shall manu- 
facture the best flour, and deal the most liberally with the 
citizens of Scott and adjoining counties. 

W. S. Collins, — A. C. Fulton, the pride of Scott County, 
the poor man's friend, the sole cause of two steam mills in 
Davenport — may the tide of prosperity and the stream of 
fortune pour into his bosom, till it shall overflow with joys 
unspeakable and full of glory. 

H. S. Finley — May Mr. Fulton's profits in making flour 
equal his enterprise in building mills. 

V. M. Firor — Scott County, the mother of produce and 
supporter of toil; 'tis hoped that she will feed with a bounti- 
ful hand the sons of her soil. 

A HERCULEAN TASK. 



I had to be in St. Louis to see to getting out patterns 
and machinery for the Aetna Mill, and also to see to the 
construction of the large Albion brick mill, and, at the 
same time, I was building a first-class brick dwelling on 
Second and Perry Streets. I erected this mansion on val- 
uable ground to be near my mill, and in time it became 
the home of the wealthy Hungarian, Mr. Nicholas Fejer- 
vary, and on its site now stands the extensive Fejervary 
commercial block. I built the extensive two story frame 
Bazaar, where now stands the brick block on the east side 
of Brady Street on the levee at the river's landing, at the 
same time working with energy on the Mississippi & Mis- 
souri Railroad. 

Until the Aetna Mill building was completed for its run- 
ning machinery, I had no millright, and never had an 
architect, although I erected buildings in four diflterent 



67 

States and one territory; the number is beyond my ability 
now to count. 

No lumber yards at that day. I had to cut the timber 
in my Illinois woods and team it to the river, and person- 
ally run the log rafts to Mr. Sears' saw mill, and when 
sawed, personally run the lumber rafts to my mills at the 
Davenport landing. I had such a vast world of work on 
hand that I had to rob the night to lengthen day. 

During the years of 1847 ^^^^ 1848, the journals and ex- 
perts reported that Old Sailor I employed more men and 
paid out more money than the balance of the town. 

In mill building, all my workmen were green and inex- 
perienced workmen, until the task of placing machinery 
took place. Yet when expert mill-rights came, they pro- 
nounced every timber, every line, in ship-shape order. 
But I did not enter on the work without knowledge, for I 
claimed to be an expert on every class of building and I 
had visited at large cost the best Pennsylvania flouring 
mills, and taken notes and sketches of machinery to im- 
prove on. 

From the moment that the first spade of earth was taken 
from the excavation for the massive stone foundations for 
the brick Albion mills on the river front at the foot of Per- 
ry Street, where they now rest in their solid strength to 
some day be cut into and create astonishment, I went into 
training in every class of work on building and placing 
machinery, and became competent to stand watch and op- 
erate in the engine room, or the grinding department, by 
night or da}^ 

Milling at that day was a lottery. No eastern market, 
and thousands of barrels of flour produced during winter 
to be shipped in the spring when all rivers were open to 
over stock the market. 

I sustained losses in Iowa Steam Mills and Railroads 
of over $30,000 in a few years — a large sum at that day, 
when a portion of it was procured at $16.00 per month, 
and called to duty during storms and tempests b}^ night 



68 

or day, but I had to train or drop out of the contest. 
The latter never! 

The first number of the Davenport Gazette here spoken 
of was issued August 26, 1841. It was a Whig Jour- 
nal, and I preserved and had the first thirteen years of 
its active, useful life bound for coming generations, if they 
should possess ordinary brains. 

' EXTENT OF TERRITORY. 

The records witness that I owned seventy-one acres in 
the First Ward of the City, twenty-two in the Second and 
Third Wards, thirteen in the Fifth on Brady Street, and 
over three hundred in the Sixth Ward, all south of Locust 
Street; and I had over seven thousand acres in Scott, Ced- 
ar and Muscatine Counties, one farm in Scott and Musca- 
tine of over eight hundred acres under fence. 

I should have possessed far more when I was constantly 
training for the supremacy in all things, during the big 
end of the century, and performing the work of a dozen 
ordinary landsmen, and when at sea, full duty and beyond. 

When I went into world building, on that then wild 
prairie, there was not a habitation in sight, but a herd of 
nine deer and two wolves long remained and were almost 
daily in sight. I personally put up the first line of fenc- 
ing, and planted the first tree in Cleona Township, and 
followed it with a vast world of work. What of it? The 
easy-go-slow, professional talker takes the stand and talks 
of the Bannered Star, of genius, and of the big bird, the 
Eagle, that roosts on the mountain's summit, and is ap- 
plauded by hundreds. 

The man that puts up the fences and plants the trees is 
not applauded, no, never, never! 

I laid off the town of Fulton near this farm, but had to 
change the name to Stockton as a town of Fulton existed 
in Iowa, and we could not get the second post office with 
the same name in a state. 

To create a town and a farm, not a house in sight at the 
onset, and setting out before sunrise to walk seventeen 



69 

miles, then making a nine honrs day's work as I have 
done, is a training that will put the double and twist in a 
young man, and would dampen the romance and poetry in 
many. 

Fulton and Fejervary built a first-class, steam flouring 
mill at Fulton that greatly aided in settling up several 
townships; but we had to move it on account of the distance 
from fuel, at a great sacrifice. 

I built four houses in or near the town, and a hotel. I 
also made the survey, drew the lines and erected for Mr. 
George B. Sargent on the five acres that I sold to him at 
Ninth and Brady Streets, the lately James Thompson's 
brick mansion, and on the five acres now stands a church 
and many stately edifices. The sash and doors of this 
structure was the early work of the Mr. T. W. McClel- 
land's Steam Factory, and I erected the brick dwelling 
No. 1026 Brady Street. 

CREATING PINE HILL 

In 1852, we had no proper burial grounds. Several 
of us talked the situation over, and I was selected to hunt 
up a suitable location, and then authorized to close a pur- 
chase, but when payment was required, all were short of 
funds, and I had to pay for Pine Hill, or abandon the un- 
dertaking and disappoint the grantees. A large outlay 
followed for fencing, tree planting and other work. And 
many costly monuments now rest within its appropriate 
grounds. 

TOOK MANY PARTS ON THE STAGE OF LIFE. 

To write up an ever active life consumes a large quan- 
tity of ink. I was a member of the Chicago Board of 
Trade in 1864, ^^^^ ^low hold my credentials. 

I, as other pioneers, have done some plowing and harrow- 
ing. I plowed the Ocean and harrowed the Rock Island 
Rapids with grain and stone barges and lumber rafts in 
the Forties before Uncle Sam removed the dangerous 
chains. When pilots have declared that, they would not 
ship with me and make the run for the gift of a steam boat. 
They did not know that resolution was omnipotent. 



70 

THE EAST RIVER ROAD. 

The east territorial road of sixty-six feet followed the 
River's windings. I, in 1854, applied to the County Court, 
and gave a road of eighty feet and at a cost to self of $800 
for grading it and grubbing out trees and thorn brushes, 
and built a culvert at a cost of $200 near now Wall Street. 

Time has made a change. The now people, for gain, 
have siezed on the Gilbert portion of that legally laid pub- 
lic road and reduced it to a miserable cow path. 

IN THE THIRTIES. 

Was sole war correspondent from a foreign country to 
the United States in the thirties. Corresponded with the 
New Orleans Bulletin which was copied by the New York 
Herald, a Journal launched on Spruce Street, New York 
in 1835, ^y James Gordon Bennett, a learned and enter- 
prising Scotchman. And I was reporter in addition to 
other arduous duties during two sessions of a State Legis- 
lature. 

NOT ALL FOR GAIN. 

The County records witness that Old Sailor Fulton gave 
town lots to four churches, and at his own cost purchased 
and hauled timber and material over seventeen miles, and 
built two bridges on the roads of Cleona Township. 

PERRY street's grand EDIFICE. 

Had not Old Sailor I, with resolve, faced vast odds in 
numbers, wealth and station, backed by the combined City 
Press? Then no magnificent public building would ever 
have adorned Perry and Fourth Streets, never. 

THE THEN WILD STATE OF MISSISSIPPI. 

In 1831,1 made a voyage onboard of the ancient steam- 
er. Yellow Stone, up the Yazoo River, the first steam boat 
voyage up that historic river. The last of the combative 
Chickasaw Indians had not long departed. Plantations 
and dwellings were widely separated, and all was new save 
a few bark and small log abodes of the Indians who had 
been driven from their homes to give space to the pale 
faced intruders. 



71 

I passed with sadness over their well-worn trails and 
through their once cultivated, open fields, and looked with 
awe upon the apparently blanketed ghost-like bleaching 
and decaying orchards of peach and other trees, that they, 
on departing, had girdled with their tomahawks to pre- 
vent the unhallowed pale face feasting on their fruit and 
reaping where they did not sow. 

I could give the pioneers many interesting pages of 
Mississippi's early daj^s, and my long inland journey, 
camping out sometimes in lonely, cane brake jungles 
where wild beasts dwelt and were constantly seen. 

THRILLING EVENTS OF EARLY DAYS AND JUSTICE TO 

MEXICO. 

Mexico, as a nation, has never received due credit for her 
virtues or achievements, while her delinquencies have been 
magnified. She has had no foreign allies, but alone and 
without assistance overcame foreign and domestic tyranny. 

She had been a valuable but discontented province of 
Spain from her conquest by Cortes in 1520 down to 1808, 
when Napoleon Bonaparte invited the royal family of 
Spain to visit France, and on their arrival cast them into 
prison at Bayonne, and then required the father to abdi- 
cate the throne of Spain to his son, and then required the 
son to renounce his crown to Joseph Bonaparte. The 
mother country thus becoming subject to a foreign power, 
the Creoles of Mexico considered it a favorable opportun- 
ity to throw off the despotic colonial S3'stem an establish 
an independent government. 

Then the brave and noble-hearted priest, Don Mogul 
Hidalgo Castilla, in the name of the great Jehovah, buckled 
on his armor and stepped forward to emancipate his kin- 
dred and the native Aztecs from Spanish tyranny. He 
unfurled the standard of independence, and for a time was 
victorious in many well-fought battles, but was finally 
vanquished and shot to death July 27, 181 1, as a traitor to 
Spain. 



72 

Priest Hidalgo's great drawback and misfortune was a 
lack of ammunition and arms; had he possessed military 
stores and arms equal to his adversaries, then without a 
doubt he would have achieved a lasting victory instead of 
defeat and death. At that day, and previously, it was not 
a surprise to see a priest or a bishop buckle on a keen- 
edged sword and enter into the battle-field with the cross 
resting on his breast. A man thus armed is more danger- 
ous than a regiment. Yes, at that day no surprise was 
exhibited if a priest or a bishop armed and openly appeared 
at the head of troops, or at the head of a state combination , 
or was the chief in command of a political plot — and where 
can any objection rest if the commander can select the 
Lord's side of the line? For instance, when Napoleon im- 
prisoned Spain's royal family at Bayonne, and a govern- 
ing junta was formed in Spain, the Archbishop of Laodicea 
was president of that junta, and in Mexico a priest. Father 
Morelos, also raised a regiment, chiefly native Aztecs, to 
give Mexico her independence, 

Mexico was valuable to Spain as is Cuba at this day as 
tax-payers, and she was not willing to surrender her Mex- 
ican taxpayers without a struggle and a heavy flow of 
Spanish blood. 

The crown of Spain had, previous to the Guerrero and 
Iturbide junction and revolution of 1821, quartered a vast 
body of its adherents as officers on the Mexican people, 
and up to that date, by their own reckoning, received $21,- 
000,000 net revenue into the treasury of the crown. Of 
this sum, $1,500,000 was a capitation tax paid by Aztecs, 
a vast sum for naked aboriginals to pay a pampered mon- 
archy, yet white men this day in Cuba do the same. 

In 1 82 1 Don Jose Toledo appeared in Washington, D. 
C, and with the knowledge of the American authorities 
formed plans and enlisted 160 men and several officers for 
the purpose of invading New Spain. This I believe to be 
the first filibustering expedition known from the United 
States. Upon entering the province many lovers of self- 
government flocked to the ranks of Toledo; and the gar- 



73 

rison town of San Antonio de Baxar, the then capital of 
the department of Texas, was taken. The following year 
Don Toledo was attacked by superior numbers and defeat- 
ed, but saved his life by flight to the United States. 

In succeeding years several other revolutionary com- 
manders shared the fate of Toledo without gaining any 
vantage ground, except to teach the people the use of arms, 
up to 1 82 1, at which period the masses were ripe for a 
change in their condition. In that year Don Augustin 
Iturbide was, through a compromise of parties, appointed 
President and commander-in-chief of the revolutionists, 
The revolt was so general that few opponents could be 
found within the province, outside of two or three gar- 
risoned seaport cities. Their old master, Spain, made 
but a feeble effort to regain these provinces, and in 1822 the 
United States Congress formally acknowledged the inde- 
pendence of Mexico. 

Iturbide soon became ambitious, and on the i8th of 
March, 1822, his partisans, backed by the soldiery, con- 
spired and proclaimed him Emperor of Mexico, under the 
title of Augustin I. He immediately proved a tyrant and 
attempted to render himself absolute. He dissolved Con- 
gress and cast thirteen of the members into prison. Thus 
was a revolution for liberty merged into despotism. Those 
and other tyrannical acts exasperated the people. Among 
the most bitter of his opponents was a former adherent, 
General Santa Anna, then in command of forces at Vera 
Cruz, who declared armed hostility to the usurper who, in 
March, 1823, was compelled to relinquish his imperial dia- 
dem and leave Mexico for Leghorn. 

The following year Iturbide returned to Mexico in dis- 
guise, was arrested and shot July 10, 1824, as a traitor to 
his country. After the departure of Iturbide from Mexico, 
General Guadalupe Victoria, styled "The Washington of 
Mexico," on account of his arduous services to his country 
during her fifteen years' conflict for independence, was 
chosen President and General Bravo Vice President. A 
constitution similar in almost every respect to that of the 



74 

United States was adopted, known as "the constitution of 
1824." I^ 1826, under Victoria's administration, an act 
was passed abolishing forever all titles of nobility in Mex- 
ico, and also a decree prohibiting the importation of slaves 
under the penalty of confiscation of vessels; the captain, 
owners, and purchaser of slaves to suffer ten years' imprison- 
ment, and the slaves being declared free from the moment 
they had landed on Mexican soil. 

In 1828 an abortive revolt was attempted by General 
Montano, backed by Vice President Bravo, both of whom 
were banished from the country. 

The administration of Victoria was one of happiness 
and prosperity. 

President Victoria's four-years' term of office being 
about to expire, an election for President, under the con- 
stitution, was in order, and Gomez Pedraza and Vincent 
Guerrero entered the presidential arena, Pedraza was 
without doubt elected by two electorial votes, and Anstacia 
Bustamente, who ran on the same ticket, was elected Vice 
President; but Guerrero's partisians, one of whom was 
Santa Anna, alleged that he had been defeated through 
fraud. Santa Anna threatened to sustain Guerrero by 
force of arms and was suspended from his command. He 
then secretly organized a conspiracy, but soon openly pro- 
claimed his purpose. He secured the fealty of his regi- 
ment, and hostilities were soon commenced against the 
government troops, who were commanded by Pedraza in 
person. Pedraza was defeated within the City of Mexico 
after a fearful combat of three days, in which over eight 
hundred Mexicans were slain, and over one thousand 
wounded, and an immense amount of property destroyed. 

Guerrero took no part in the sanguinary conflict, but 
resided quietly on his estate, until made President by mili- 
tary force and the declaration of Congress in January, 1829. 
Bustamente, who ran on the Pedraza ticket, was proclaimed 
Vice President, and Santa Anna was made Secretary of 
War. One of the first measures of Guerrero's administra- 



75 

tion was a decree expelling from Mexico all natives of 
Spain, but this decree was never fully enforced. 

In the early part of the Guerrero administration, Ferdi- 
nand VII. of Spain, who had in 1808 surrended the crown 
of his father to Joseph Bonaparte, fitted out a large squadron 
and captured Tampico. The Mexicans, in a very limited 
time, raised and equippted an army superior in numbers, 
forced their old and most bitter enemies to surrender, and 
made stipulation to lay down their arms and never more 
invade Mexican territory, they were permitted to return to 
Havana, from whence they had embarked. 

When the intelligence of the invasion by Spain reached 
the City of Mexico Congress assembled, and under the con- 
stitution passed a resolution investing the President with 
dictatorial powers. Under this invested power President 
Guerrero, on the nth of September, 1829, issued a decree 
abolishing slavery throughout the republic. This act of 
goodness of heart did not add to Guerrero's popularity. 
The owners of the African slaves pronounced the act un- 
called for, as it was not a necessity growing out of the in- 
vasion. The slaveholders within the United States also 
bitterly denounced President Guerrero. 

This emancipation decree caused an unfriendly ripple 
between the citizens of the South and Mexico that was 
detrimental to the prosperit}^ of both republics. 

The ambitious Vice President, Bustamente, considered it 
a favorable time to place himself in power, and, lago-like, 
proceeded to dispose of Guerrero. He worked upon his 
feelings by picturing to him the enormity of his acts, es- 
pecially his decree abolishing slavery, and laid before him 
the great danger he was in from a wronged and enraged 
people. At the same time he was secretly forming a con- 
spiracy for his overthrow, and, finally throwing off the 
mask, he openly proclaimed that Guerrero had violated 
the constitution b}^ seizing the Presidency through force 
of arms when not elected. Guerrero declined to be sus- 
tained by military force and resigned to Congress his 
dictatorial powers, departed from the capitol, and was pre- 



76 

paring to leave the republic when Bustamente, who was 
Vice President, succeeded to the Presidential chair; his 
first official act was to declare Guerrero an outlaw. Guer- 
rero was captured and a Cabinet called, presided over by 
Bustamente. The decision of the council was that Guer- 
rero should be treated as a common criminal, and tried by 
a military tribunal. The trial immediately followed, and 
Guerrero was sentenced and shot as a common criminal on 
the loth day of February, 1831. 

Thus the emancipator of slavery in the Mexican Re- 
public, like the emancipator of slavery in the American 
Republic, met an untimely death. ' 

President Guerrero had rendered arduous and valuable 
services to his country in many conflicts on the tented 
field, during her protracted struggle with Spain for her 
independence, and his short administration was noted for 
wisdom and clemency. 

As soon as Guerrero was disposed of, Bustamente estab- 
lished a perfect despotism and proved to be a boundless 
tyrant, whose cruelty eclipsed that of Nero. He dis- 
regarded all legal acts, and to complain of his oppression 
was death. His military officers partook of his example. One 
instance will suffice: A newspaper published an article re- 
flecting on the acts of an army officer; the officer ordered 
the press destroyed and the editor, who was then under 
arrest, shot. The order was immediately obeyed. 

A decree was issued for the expulsion of all foreigners 
from Mexico who had not settled under the colonization 
laws of 1825. This decree was aimed at the settlers in 
Texas. 

Discontent prevailed throughout the republic, and in 1832 
Santa Anna, who had remained in retirement since the fall 
of Guerrero, collected an army from several disaffected mili- 
tary posts for the purpose of deposing the tyrant. When 
Bustamente learned that Santa Anna was marching to the 
capitol with an armed force, and found himself through 
his unpopularity unprepared to resist, he relinquished his 



n 

power into the hands of Congress, and fled from the countr}^ 
Santa Anna immediately sent a vessel to the United States 
for Pedraza, whom he had deposed in 1828, and placed 
him in the Presidential chair to serve the short remainder 
of the term for which he had been elected. Then he re- 
tired to his estate, well knowing that a grateful people 
would soon tender him the Presidency. 

In 1833 Antonio Lopez Santa Anna was elected Presi- 
dent without a competitor; but he, like Iturbide and Bus- 
tamente, also became ambitious, and plainly showed a de- 
sire to raise himself to absolute power. He abolished the 
constitution of 1824, "^^^ dissolved by decree the constitu- 
tional council of senators known as the General Council. 
He increased his army^ and appointed his adherants as 
governors. Several states took up arms against the usurper, 
but were speedily subdued. In his message of 1835 ^^ 
plainly told the people that they were not worthy of a free 
government, and that the object of Congress was to perfect 
the opinions of the President. Being in fear of the Repub- 
licans on account of his schemes of centralization and self- 
aggrandizement, he sought the influ.ence of the clergy and 
old-time Royalists, who had denounced all the forms of 
the Republican Congress as invading the sacred rights of 
the Church. Military despotism was fully established. 
Confiscation and imprisonment followed resistance, and for 
a season Santa Anna was truly dictator. 

The state of Texas at this period, 1835, contained "^ P^P" 
ulation of fifty-three thousand, who had been uneasj^ and 
discontented, even to armed resistance, during the Busta- 
niente administration. They now felt greatly exasperated 
at the unwarranted acts of Santa Anna and his ofiicers, 
and especially at the acts dissolving their legislatures by a 
military order and imprisoning their representatives at the 
capitol, as well as the act abolishing the constitution of 
1824, which they had considered one of the safeguards of 
their liberties. Santa Anna should have known that the 
science of revolution was well known in Alexico, and could 



78 

and would be put in force at short notice. The usurper 
issued a manifesto against the disaffected Texans, and dis- 
patched a force of fifteen hundred soldiers, under command 
of General Cos, to carry out his decree. General Cos, un- 
der the new system of centralism, was Military Governor, 
and the people of Texas saw their only safety in armed 
resistance. At the same period a fortunate coincidence 
for Texas took place without any concert of action, which 
beyond a doubt saved the Texans from banishment or ex- 
termination, and bestowed independence in 1836. 

This coincidence, or act, was the assembling, equipping, 
and marching to the battlefield of Texas many hundredis 
of volunteers from the United States, but principally from 
New Orleans. Of those volunteers nearly four hundred, 
all young men, embarked at one time on one vessel, and 
several hundred followed, and arrived in time to be engaged 
in the first battles of the campaign of 1835: the battle of the 
mission, and the storming of the fortified town of San An- 
tonio, under the command of Colonel Milam until his death 
on the field, then under General Burlston to the final sur- 
render of the Mexican forces of General Cos, on December 
II, 1835, and after a siege of several days, with many hand- 
to-hand contests. Under this capitulation large, valuable, 
and much-needed munitions of war fell into the hands of 
the Texans. The surrender of General Cos terminated 
the campaign of 1835. 

A majority of the soldiers actively engaged in those 
memorable battles were the United States Volunteers. 
Those from Louisiana were known throughout the cam- 
paign as "the New Orleans Gra3^s." John C. Calhoun, at 
the time of the enlistment of those volunteers, was bitterly 
denounced by many Northern journals, as the originator 
of the movement, with a view to extending slavery. This 
accusation was unjust, as he could not even know of the 
movement until after many hundred had embarked. 

It becomes necessary to a life's voyage to say that the 
first move or call for United States votunteers to aid Texas 



• 79 

in her struggle for independence was made by Sailor I, 
without any concert of action or consultation with even a 
single individual. When word arrived at New Orleans by 
vessel that the representatives of Texas who were Ameri- 
cans had been cast into prison at the City of Mexico, and 
that President Santa Anna had issued a mantfesto requir- 
ing the Texans to leave the State, I felt that they were 
not properly treated, and that they merited aid. On Octo- 
ber II, 1835, I wrote the following notice, a copy of which 
in now before me: 

"The friends of Texas are requested to meet at Bank's 
Arcade to-morrow evening, October 12, at seven o'clock, to 
consult and adopt measures for the relief of the oppressed 
Texans," I took this notice to Editor Putnam P. Rea of 
the New Orleans "Bulletin," and asked him if he would 
publish the call; he replied, "Certainly, with pleasure." 
The meeting took place, but the big men rushed in, took 
possession of the meeting, crowded the boys into the back- 
ground. William Christy, Esq., was called to the chair, 
and James Ramage, Esq., was appointed secretary; Ran- 
dal Hunt, Esq., an attorney of eminence, made a stirring 
and patriotic address, and Sailor I talked to the vast as- 
sembly, but was awfully scared at standing before so 
many big men — more scared than I was when the pirates 
of the Bahamas gave us chase and fired their cannon at 
us, and when gloomy Jo reckoned the extent of our lives 
to be two hours. 

Lists were opened for volunteers, and over 150 names 
were immediately entered, and those volunteers adjourned to 
meet in the Customhouse Square, next day at 7 o'clock 
A. M. for drill. On the 17th of October, just five days 
after the first call for volunteers, 380 cleared from the port 
on board of a sailing vessel, name obliterated, as the act 
would forever affect her intercourse in the Mexican trade, 
and it would also affect her officers and owners. 

Mexico possessed several well-armed vessels, and an en- 
counter with them was not desired by the unknown. To 



8o 

obtain arms every good rifle for sale in the city was donated 
or purchased, then a house-to-house call for a donation of 
rifles, muskets, navy pistols, and ammunition was made 
by express wagons in charge of officers, and many first- 
class weapons were donated. Several veterans, with looks 
of sorrow, parted with their rifles that they had stood be- 
hind at the Jackson and Pakenham battle of New Orleans 
in January, 1815. 

The unknown was not pierced for cannon and carried 
none, but her 400 men, including her crew, did not pro- 
pose to be seized upon and shot to death as pirates without 
a desperate struggle. Death was sure to follow capture; 
as we were bandit invaders, we had no claim to quarter. 
Our programme was, if overhauled by a Mexican revenue 
cutter or a cruiser, to immediately act on the offensive. 
First to store our strength, the troops, out of sight; then to 
run into or alongside of the enemy, make fast to her and 
then rush our 380 armed soldiers onto her decks. With 
this intent, in addition to our firearms, numbering near 
500 pieces, I had 100 common boathooks ground sharp at 
my workshop, to be used as boarding pikes, and the vol- 
unteers had received, whilst on shore, three days' constant 
drill, and were immediately on setting sail divided into 
squads, put under drill with arms, or drill for attacking 
and boarding an enemy's ship, and very soon they could 
move with the precision of a Hoe printing press. A safe 
and quick landing was made at the then obscure port of 
Indianola, on the Bay of San Antonio. Then came to the 
volunteers hardships and privations impossible to picture 
with pen and ink. Whilst on drill within the Custom- 
house Square at New Orleans, many of the volunteers 
spoke and felt that they could hew their way to the halls 
of the Montezumas, but when marching from Indianola, 
hungry and thirsty, they were willing to shorten the dis- 
tance to fame and immortality, even to the sacrifice of the 
coveted prize. On the i8th of October, the following day 
after the unknown set sail for Mexico, the steamer "An- 



achitat" cleared from the port of New Orleans with other 
volunteers for Texas, the number unknown to me. One 
fact I do know, that the United States volunteers engaged 
on the battlefields of Texas outnumbered the home troops, 
both in the campaign of 1835 and 1836. No doubt files of 
journals of 1835 exist in New Orleans, to more fully give 
this eventful history of that day. 

The most extraordinary fact in connection with those 
volunteers and the Texas campaign of 1835 was that, with- 
in sixty days of the call to arms, not one armed Mexican 
was quartered within the State of Texas. The campaign 
of 1835 was ended, but not so with the campaign of 1836, 
which possessed its horrors, but I was not a witness of 
1836. The Texas revolution was not a revolution for 
slavery, and Mr. Calhoun took no part in it. 

True, wealthy citizens, many of them slaveholders, con- 
tributed funds. Mr. Calhoun's State did not furnish thirty 
men (direct from the State) as volunteers during the cam- 
paign of 1835, and a less number than Ohio in 1836. But 
when the question of annexing Texas to the United States 
came before the authorities at Washington, Mr. Calhoun, 
then Secretary of State, used every exertion to consum- 
mate the annexation. 

The surrender of General Cos' forces caused a cessation 
of hostilities, and the services of the United States volun- 
teers were no longer required in active war. Few of them 
possessed funds; the wardrobe of all was scant; they were 
strangers in a sparcely settled country distracted by war, 
and no employment was to be had; consequently, about 
170, to secure shelter and rations, garrisoned the Alamo, 
under the command of Colonel W. B. Travis, and a large 
number quartered at Goliad and vicinity. At this period 
the general opinion in Texas was that the Mexicans were 
vanquished or disheartened, and W'Ould never invade Texan 
territory again, but Santa Anna surprised the unwary b}^ 
appearing before the Alamo with a large army, and after 
a siege of several days he made an assault on the morning 



82 

of March 6, 1836, and put every occupant to the sword, 
save a black bo}^, a servant of General Travis. One sol- 
dier had, the evening previous, scaled the walls, and un- 
observed made his escape. Among the slain was the far- 
famed Colonel David Crockett, who was at that time a 
guest of Commander Travis. The above facts, respecting 
the two who escaped and the position of Colonel Crockett, 
we personally obtained from a citizen residing at the time 
but a few rods from the Alamo. No doubt the boy's color 
and being a non-combatant, saved his life. 

Many journals, in speaking of this massacre, have placed 
Colonel Crockett in command. The prevailing opinion 
of Colonel Crockett is that he was an uncouth person, 
dressed as a hunter, and surrounded by his dogs. This is 
an error. True, he received little or no education in his 
youth, but after he arrived at manhood he employed his 
spare time in cultivating his mind, and became one of 
Tennessee's best speakers as well at statesmen. He was 
twice elected to the legislature of his State and for three 
terms to the United States Congress. He was a Whig, 
and stumped the State as an opponent of Jackson and Van 
Buren, which fact defeated him on his fourth nomination 
for Congress. This defeat cost him his life, as he immedi- 
ately journeyed to his death in Texas. Crockett wrote the 
life of Martin Van Buren, which was well spiced with 
satirical flings. His powerful address at Benton, Miss., 
spoke his ability. 

The Alamo massacre, which is always spoken of with 
horror, did not compare in numbers or atrocity with the 
massacre at Goliad, where on the 27th of the same month, 
March, Colonel Fannen and his forces, over five hundred 
men, after a persistent and hard-fought battle, were by 
order of the Mexican commander. General Urrea, marched 
out of the fort in four divisions, and over four hundred 
shot, in violation of the terms of their surrender. A few 
broke through the armed lines of the Mexicans and made 
their escape by swimming the San Antonio River; a por- 



83 

tion were saved to perform labor in moving Mexican mili- 
tary stores. Almost every man who met this cruel death 
at Goliad, like those of the Alamo, were United States vol- 
unteers. 

A large number of the Texans, upon the approach of 
Santa Anna's invading army — principally those with fami- 
lies — fled toward the United States border, promising to 
return as soon as they deposited their families in safety. 
But very few returned during the war, leaving the volun- 
teers to defend their homes. In recording these facts we 
do not mean to imply that the masses of the Texans were 
lacking in duty or bravery, for they were not. 

Santa Anna, flushed with victory, continued his march 
eastward with 1800 of his best troops, and on the evening 
of April 20 he camped on the San Jacinto, in sight of the 
Texans. On the 2 ist General Houston, with his little army 
of some 780 men, amid the war cry of "Remember the 
Alamo and Goliad!" made a charge of desperation on the 
Mexicans, leaving 700 dead upon the field, while over 700 
were taken prisoners, with their commander. General 
Santa Anna. 

The general feeling of the Texans was to put Santa 
Anna to the sword, but he was a diplomatist and equal to 
the emergency. Few men with the blood of the Alamo 
and Goliad fresh upon their hands could have so cooly 
faced the infuriated soldiery. 

He told them that Santa Anna alive was more valu- 
able to them than Santa Anna dead; that as the ruler 
of Mexico he possessed power, although a prisoner, and 
could give them independence. Stipulations were entered 
into that the second division of the invading ami}' un- 
der General IVrea should leave the State, and that he, for 
Mexico acknowledged the independence of Texas, with the 
Rio Grande as the southwest boundry, and would never 
more invade the State of Texas. Then the flag of the Lone 
Star of Libert}' was unfurled on the banks of the San 
Jacinto, which reduced Mexico's sixteen states to fifteen. 



84 

Fully one-half of General Houston's victorioiis army 
were United States volunteers, representing every state in 
the Union. Most of those from the North and West en- 
listed at New Orleans; but the Southern States furnished 
about sixt3'-five per cent, of all volunteers. Francis Moore 
of Ohio arrived in Texas in 1836, with his company of 
"Buckeye Rangers," while Sidney Sherman of Cincinnati, 
O., raised a cavalry company sixty strong, which he com- 
manded at San Jacinto. Santa Anna was sent from Texas 
to Washington, D. C, in January, 1837, ^^^^ returned 
from there to Mexico, to be twice thereafter banished from 
his country, and twice elected President. In 1868, while in 
exile in New York, he planned an expedition against Presi- 
dent Juarez, and was arrested on landing at Vera Cruz and 
sentenced to death, but was pardoned by Juarez, on con- 
dition of leaving the country. 

One of the objects of this condensed history is to do 
justice to Mexico, where it is due; also to the long-neglected 
volunteers from the United States, most of whom sacrificed 
their lives in procuring for Texas its independence, and 
for which the}^ suffered every privation and hardship 
through hunger and thirst, through sickness and painful 
death. No commissary stores followed their marches; no 
skilled surgeons or hospital nurses administered to their 
wants; the earth was their couch, and Heaven's broad arch 
their canopy. Their resolution was unbounded. No 
sooner had they driven the Mexicans out of Texas in 1835 
than they equipped a force commanded by Colonel John- 
son and Major R. C. Morris, of the "New Orleans Grays," 
for the capture of Matamoras. 

This expedition proved a failure, and cost the volunteers 
many lives. Then in 1841 the remnant of them, in con- 
nection with Texans, numbering in all 335 men, formed 
an expedition for the subjugation of New Mexico. This 
expedition also proved very unfortunate. They suffered 
greatly in the mountains and lost several of their number, 
and were finally betrayed and then captured at San Miguel, 



85 

by Armijo, Governor of Mexico. Had the Pathfinder, 
General Fremont, when on his monntain journey in 1845 
directed his steps a few days' travel southward, the charred 
remains of the campfires of those volunteers could have 
been ignited to give him warmth, and their westward 
trails would have guided his course to the Pacific coast. 

Notwithstanding Mexico's internal and external wars, 
she made a progress in prosperity equal to many European 
nations, and the mercantile world considered her market 
very valuable, and her mines were estimated to produce, in 
gold and silver, five times more than all the mines of Eu- 
rope combined. Some sixty years back her vast resources 
in gold and silver, and her valuable markets for merchan- 
dise, aroused the cupidity of American merchants and 
shipowners; but a heavy duty on imports interfered with 
large profits. To avoid the payment of this duty, every 
species of ingenuity was adopted. Manifests were falsi- 
fied, tonnage underrated, vessels built with compartments 
and manned especially as smugglers, and when stealth 
failed bribery was resorted to. Thus fully one-third of all 
American exports to Mexico was run in free of duty. It 
was estimated at this period that the American merchants 
carried out of Mexico about sixteen million dollars in gold 
and silver annually, besides products amounting to a great 
many millions. I was solicited to invest and embark in 
this illicit commerce as early as 1832; therefore I speak 
knowingly. 

The larger portion of this contraband commerce was car- 
ried on from New Orleans, then the heaviest shipping 
port in the known world, her foreign exports exceeding 
those of all other seaports in the United States combined. 
Many of those contraband vessels and cargoes were siezed 
and confiscated, upon which the owners set up a cry of 
lamentation, and the United States authorities were ap- 
pealed to. A commission was appointed to hear and re- 
cord an amount of perjury sufficient to sink a substantial 
Sodom and Gomorrah. Indemnit}- was awarded, but pay- 



86 

ment deferred. In 1844 active measures were taken b}^ 
the Cabinet at Washington, through Mr. Upshur, Secre- 
tary of State, and after his death, through Mr. Calhoun, 
toward the annexation of Texas to the United States, and 
also to enforce the payment of this unrighteous indemnity, 
which Mexico persistently claimed was unjustly awarded. 

In confirmation of this statement of dissatisfaction we 
will go to the archives at Washington. There we find an 
extraordinary message sent by President Polk to Congress, 
in which the President, in speaking of the mission of Mr. 
John Sliddel to Mexico, says: 

"Mr. Slidell was sent to Mexico with full power to ad- 
just all the questions in dispute between the two govern- 
ments; both the question of the Texas boundary and the 
indemnification to our citizens." But Mr. Slidell's mis- 
sion proved to be ill-timed, as Mexico had already informed 
the Washington Cabinet that annexation should be fol- 
lowed by war, and annexation was at that time consum- 
mated. 

At the same time that Mr. Slidell was journeying to 
Mexico, General Taylor's army of over four thousand sol- 
diers, soon to be largely increased, was marching to the 
Rio Grande. Two bombastic and haughty letters from 
Mr. Slidell were addressed to the authorities at the Mexi- 
can capitol, demanding their attention. Invasion having 
taken place, the Mexican government refused to treat with 
Mr. Slidell, and Mr. Uenzas, the Mexican Minister of 
Foreign affairs, forwarded to him his passports. 

It is very clear upon an unbiased survey of all the well- 
known circumstances that this war, which placed a stigma 
on America, could have been averted by a discreet and ju- 
dicious administration, and at the same time have pro- 
duced about the same results. But our government was 
controlled by evident greed, backed by duplicity, to obtain 
indemnity and to embrace the territory between the 
Nueces and the Rio Grande, which was never within the 
boundaries of Texas, nor even claimed to be until after the 



87 

act of Santa Anna in purchasing his life when a prisoner 
at San Jacinto; an act which the then Mexican Congress 
very properU^ disavowed. 

In several of the IMexican battles with the United States, 
Santa Anna, the Napoleon of the New World, the maker 
and deposer of presidents, was in command. He entered 
public life when twenty-three years of age, and died in the 
city of Mexico in his eighty-fourth year. 

The masses of the Americans, judging from past and 
present actions, do not fully appreciate the real value of 
the commerce and markets of Mexico, and the necessity 
of amicable relations and fair dealing to reap the benefit. 
And many Americans, not lacking in goodness of heart, 
but deficient in a proper knowledge of the jMexicans, write 
them down as ignorant barbarians. Never was there a 
greater error. IMexico has had her diplomatists — her 
Websters, Clays, Bentons, and Blaines — in her L-anzas, 
Peny Pena, Bocanegra, and Almonte, and the records of 
her diplomacy, now within the archives at Washington, 
bear the stamp of ecpiality with, if not of superiority^ over 
those of Calhoun, Buchanan, Donaldson, andSlidell, all of 
whom were actors in this tragedy. 

As evidence of diplomatic ability, I quote the following 
passage from the declaration of Mr. Bocanegra, the Mexi- 
can Minister of Foreign Relations, addressed to Waddy 
Thompson, our Minister in Mexico, August 23, 1843, ^^^ 
the annexation question, in which Mr. Bocanegra says: 

"And if a party in Texas is now endeavoring to effect 
its incorporation with the United States, it is from a con- 
sciousness of their notorious incapability to form and consti- 
tute an independent nation, without their having changed 
their situation or accpiired any right to separate them- 
selves from their mother country. His Excellency the 
President, resting on this deep conviction, is obliged to 
prevent aggression, unprecedented in the annals of the 
world, from being consummated; and if it be indispensable 
for the Mexican nation to seek security for its rights at 



the expense of the disasters of war, it will call upon God, 
and rely on its own efforts for the defense of its just cause." 

A short time subsequent General Almonte, Mexico's 
Minister at Washington, addressed a note to Mr. Upshur, 
Secretary of State, in which the following passage is a 
portion: 

"But if, contrary to the hopes and wishes entertained by 
the Government of the undersigned for the preservation of 
the good understanding and harmony which should reign 
between the two neighboring and friendly republics, the 
United States should, in defiance of good faith and the 
principles of justice which they have constantly proclaimed, 
commit the unheard-of act of violence of appropriating to 
themselves an integrant part of the Mexican territory, the 
undersigned, in the name of his nation, and now for them, 
protests in the most solemn manner against such an ag- 
gression; and he moreover declares, by express order of 
his Government, that on sanction being given by the Ex- 
ecutive of the Union to the incorporation of Texas into the 
United States, he will consider his mission ended, seeing 
that, as the Secretary of State will have learned, the Mexi- 
can Government is resolved to declare war as soon as it 
receives intimation of such an act." 

Many Americans claim advancement in civilization on 
account of their abolishing slavery, yet the abolition of 
slavery by Mexico preceeded that of the United States by 
thirty-five years. 

In 1 86 1 Mexico became greatly embarassed, partly 
through her war with the United States. Her indebted- 
ness having matured, she suspended payments to all for- 
eign countries; thereupon England, France, and Spain, 
united for the purpose of obtaining satisfaction. Mexico 
was invaded, and terms satisfactory to England and Spain 
were agreed upon. France declined to ratify the agreement 
and declared war. After subjugating several states Na- 
poleon III., in 1864, induced Maximilian, Archduke of 
Austria, to become Emperor of Mexico. One of his first 



89 

acts was to decree that all who adhered to the Republic 
should be put to death, and many were shot and others 
imprisoned. 

This act sealed the Emperor's doom. Little did Maxi- 
milian know that no people loved libert}^ more and feared 
death less than did the masses of the Mexicans. The Re- 
publicans united and defeated the Emperor's army in 
several hard-fought battles. Maximilian was taken prison- 
er and shot on June i8, 1867. 

Through various authentic sources I estimate that dur- 
ing Mexico's revolutionary war of fifteen years and her 
numerous internal wars, together with her American and 
French wars, nearly six hundred thousand of her citizens 
were slain, and not less than one hundred thousand of those 
were non-combatants. For instance, the Spanish General 
Coliejo slaughtered over four thousand fleeing citizens of 
Quautia in one day, all unarmed and mostly non-combatants. 

There is not a shadow of doubt but that usurpation by 
the military has been the bane of Mexico, retarding its 
prosperity and imparing its happiness as a nation. The 
writer ihas noted her prosperity and adversities since 1830, 
and should have knowledge of results; but if there is any 
virtue in a nation being exempt from bloodshed and broils, it 
is a virtue that the United States cannot claim to possess, 
as each passing year plainly shows; yet the very actors of 
those horrors cry "Butchers!" and point an indignant fin- 
ger at Mexico. 

IN THE THIRTIES. 

The New Orleans "Times-Democrat" of May 14, 18^3,^%!^ 
now before me, in publishing occurances of half a centuy 
back, in a portion of its article says, "There is now on a 
short visit to our city a gentleman who fift}' 3'ears ago con- 
structed man}^ of the most prominent buildings of our 
city. Mr. A. C. Fulton, now hale and hearty, although he 
is over seventy-three years of age, is on his wa}- to Teaxs 
and Mexico to look over the battlefields. In 1S33-34, he Z^ 
put up on the site of the St. James Hotel, the well-known _ J; 



90 

resort of those days, the Banks Arcade, a portion of which 
is now being removed, after half a century, to make way 
for the new Produce Exchange. 

"In 1835, Santa Anna, then Dictator of Mexico, having 
imprisoned in the City of IMexico the Representatives of 
the then Mexican state of Texas, issued his pronuncia- 
mento requiring all Americans to leave that state under 
penalty if they were found within its limits. Mr. Fulton 
espoused the cause of Texas, and through the city papers 
here, on the 12th of October, 1835, called upon the citizens 
to assemble to take action in behalf of the oppressed Tex- 
ans. A corps of 380 volunteers were raised, and they 
were armed by the wealthy citizens of New Orleans. 

"They embarked immediately for Texas, and soon par- 
ticipated in the Battle of the Mission and the storming 
and the capture of the fortified city of San Antonio de 
Baxar, which ended the campaign of 1835. He then built 
a number of large stores, including the Thayer and Twitch- 
ell Block on Poydras Street, between Alagazine and Camp 
streets. He, with Mr. Joseph Baldwin, the brother of Re- 
corder Baldwin, well-known in earlier days here, built an 
addition to the St. Mary Market and erected the Poydras 
Market. After losing a considerable sum on a cotton 
press on account of a panic, he put up the granite building 
No. Ill Canal Street, and in 1841 he built for Jacob L. 
Florance No. 112 Canal Street, and Nos. 8, 10, 12, and 14 
St. Charles Street; in 1842 for Mr. Florance, Paul Tulane, 
and Mr. Pelia he built a block of buildings on the triangle 
of Canal and Tchoupitoulas Street. Mr. Fulton's account 
of the extent of the city half a century ago is very interest- 
ing." 

LATER PRESIDENTS KNOWN TO ALL. 

I recorded from my diary some of Mexico's early Presi- 
dents; I will here record those of later years, together with 
the date of their election: General Comonfort, elected in 
1857; Don Benito Juarez, 1858; Don Sebastian Lerdo, 1872; 
General Porfirio Diaz, 1876; General Diaz, 1878; General 



91 

Gonzalez, 1881; General Diaz, 1888, and twice elected in 
succession since that date. He is considered to be one of 
Mexico's best and wisest presidents. President Juarez was 
of Indian parentage, of unmixed blood, and a man of tal- 
ent and bravery. 

My object in Mexico was to procure not less than fifty 
thousand soldiers by permission of the Mexican authori- 
ties, to invade and give freedom to the people of an island; 
at that day fifty thousand brave men could have been pro- 
cured for a good cause, but consent to muster them in and 
ship them from a Mexican port could not. Respecting 
the mustering in of troops, I called on the United States 
Minister Plenipotentiary and Envoy Kxtraordinary, Philip 
H. Morgan, who with emphasis and energy advised me to 
abandon the military operation and return to the States, 
and escape being shot down. 

MAXIMILIAN'S vSHORT RULE. 

As is well known to all of that day, Ferdinand Maxi- 
milian, Archduke of Austria, was but a tool of Napoleon 
the Third, to cheapl}^ make for Napoleon a name of 
fame and greatness by establishing a Monarchy in the 
Western Republican World. ' 

Maximilian was the second son of the Archduke, Fran- 
cis Charles of Austria, and was in his thirty-second year 
of age when crowned Emperor of Mexico. He was born 
in Austria in 1832, and during several years of his young 
manhood, he served in the Austrian Navy, as a sailor, sail- 
ing master, and commander and was noted as a very effici- 
ent officer. 

He was married at Brussels in 1857 to the Princess 
Charlotta, the only daughter of Leopold I. of Belgium, 
who was opposed to his accepting a Mexican Throne. He 
was crowned in April, 1864, upon which he renounced all 
his rights to the throne of Austria. 

Emperor Maximilian and Empress Charlotta landed at 
Vera Cruz from of an Austrian frigate, which was escorted 



92 

by a French man-of-war on the 29th of May, 1864, and 
arrived at the City of Mexico on June 12th. 

The fire of Republican liberty had not been quenched 
in Mexico and the European usurper was defeated in bat- 
tle, and through the decree of a military court martial, he 
was shot to death by pure blooded Aztecs at Cerra De Las 
Companas, and in time he was shipped to his Austrian 
home. 

The authorities of the United States had been appealed 
to when he was a prisoner, but thc}^ refused to interfere in 
the Bmperor's behalf. 

I visited the fallen Emperor's grave with its wild and 
rough surroundings, where he lay between two of his offi- 
cers who were shot to death the same moment by the Az- 
tecs, and I inspected the gay halls of his usurped palace 
in the City of Mexico. 

The United States acknowledged the independence of 
Mexico in 1822. 

I do but speak of facts and occurences that called my 
attention or that I was interested in, or in which I took 
an active part. 



93 



OUR CIVIL WAR. 



When this war broke out, I, knowing that New Orleans 
would be a point of contest, and that every military officer 
and militar3^ engineer acquainted with that latitude through 
experience would be in the Confederate Army, and that 
the Northern invaders would be unacquainted with the 
military situation, and might meet the fate of General 
Pakenham, who was for days delayed for want of a correct 
knowledge of the military situation of the country, I in 
December, 1861, from inspection and surveys got up mili- 
tary maps, embracing rivers, lakes, canals, timber, swamp 
lands, roads, and bridges, for which Sailor I received the 
thanks of the Government through Mr. Simon Cameron, 
Secretary of War, in words as follows: 

"War Department, December 30, 1861. 
"A. C. Fulton, Esq., Davenport, la. 

"Sir: I have to acknowledge the receipt of the map of 
the city of New Orleans and vicinity, forwarded b}^ you to 
this department. 

"The thanks of the Government are due to you for this 
practical manifestation of 3''our devotion to the cause of our 
country in this unprecedented trial of the strength of our 
institutions. With much respect, 

"Your Obt. Servant, 

"Simon Cameron, 

"Secretary of War." 

As is well known this disastrous war grew out of the 
African slave question and caused a vast destruction of 
of life and property, and many suffered losses at a distance 
from the battlefield. Sailor I was aiding an unsuccessful 
adventurer in opening ]\It. Ida Boarding School or College 
in Davenport, Scott County, Iowa, that I built and owned, 
including the furniture, and with bright hopes had placed 
all in good Western order, when the homeless Twenty- 
eighth Iowa Regiment made a raid into town and took 
possession of the premises by forcing the locks of every 
room, and set up several cookshops and tumbled straw into 



94 

the first floor for the soldiers' bedding, whilst other soldiers 
and the officers took possession of the beds and couches 
and the floors of the second and third stories. I found it 
very injurious to the boarding-school beds for the officers 
to sleep in them with their boots on after a rain, when 
there were no sidewalks on the streets. After two weeks 
the troops got transportation to the front of battle, leaving 
two sick soldiers in the hospital room. This was Mt. Ida's 
death wound. 

I with care counted up the destruction and loss, placed 
it on paper which is now before me, and says "Loss and 
Damage, $988." To the correctness of this bill I affirmed 
before Mr. John C. Bills, attorney, then intending to re- 
quest the State or the General Government to aid me in 
quartering the soldiers, but a second thought told me that 
the honor of perhaps being the only individual sailor of the 
world who quartered a regiment at his own large cost was 
worth more than the small sum that would obliterate that 
honor. The consequence is the bill for damages will never 
be receipted. 

Without a doubt the African slave was the cause of 
North America's home war of the the sixties; I must there- 
fore take from my diary the number of those slaves that 
each State possessed in 1863, when emancipation took place, 
and place it on record for the information of future gener- 
ations. Those slave States numbered sixteen: 



NUMBER OF SLAVES. 



Arkansas, 

Alabama, 

Delaware, 

Florida, 

Georgia, . 

Ken tuck}', 

Louisiana, 

Maryland, 

Mississippi, 

Missouri, 



111,103 

435,132 

1,797 

462,234 
225,490 
333,012 
87,188 
436,696 
114,965 



95 

North Carolina, 3 31,081 

South Carolina, . 402,541 

Tennessee, ....... 275,784 

Texas, 180,682 

Virginia, 472,5^6 

West Virginia, i8,37i 

The slaves of sixteen states, numbering 3,950,345 slaves, 
a vast number of human beings to be under the absolute 
control of man, to work and be properly treated or abused, 
j ust as the master thought proper — no force, no law to 
stay or check any wrong or cruelty that the master might 
think proper to inflict! 

THE DAYS OF TRIAL IN HAWAII. 

When the Republic of Hawaii was struggling for exist- 
ence, and President Cleveland had placed his big foot on 
the neck of the infant Republic, I, in violation of the neutral- 
ity laws, purchased and shipped by Adams Express and on 
an ocean vessel arms and ammunition at my own cost, 
and in time I received the following letter from Sanford B. 
Dole, President of the Ocean Island Republic. 

"Department of Foreign Affairs, 

" 'Honolulu, January 30, 1894. 
'"Dear Sir: 

" 'It is my pleasant duty to inform you that the arms 
and ammunition you mentioned in your letter of Decem- 
ber nth, last, have arrived. 

" 'I accept with pleasure your gift, which, aside from its 
intrinsic worth, I esteem and value as evidence that Ha- 
waii possesses a brave and loyal friend. 

" 'Of our intention to maintain our present position and 
build up a stable and enlightened government in these 
islands, you may rest assured. We have, I think, enough 
supporters here to oppose attacks by any faction or clique 
against constituted authority, and therefore would not 
recommend 3^ou to come out here, believing that you could 
aid us quite sufficiently at home by disseminating correct 
ideas in regard to our country. 



96 

" 'Thanking you for your generous gift and sympathy, 
I have the honor to be, 

" Your obedient servant, 

" 'Sanford B. Dole, 
" 'President and Minister of Foreign Affairs. 
" 'To A. C. Fulton, Esq., Davenport, la., U. S. A.' " 

The aid of one poor sailor in a nation's cause may ap- 
pear as naught, yet might has slumbered in a single arm. 
A weak hand, with pen and ink, may cause thousands to 
feel the lash of justice and make them cringe, and cause 
tyrants to fear the sword of vengeance, when no sword is 
in sight. 

I do but speak of facts and occurrences that called my 
attention or that I was interested in, or in which I took an 
active part. 

"m'kown's winter." 
As Published in the Democrat. 

" 'You believe the climate is changing! What makes 
you think so? Because this is such a severe winter! All 
nonsense. I want to tell you that this winter is ethereal 
mildness compared with a winter we had in old times. 
Old settler's brag! Not a bit of brag about it. What I 
tell you is a fact.' 

"The speaker was D. P. McKown, the secretary of the 
Scott County Pioneer Settler's Association, who has lived 
in Davenport nearly fifty years. 

" 'It was the winter of 1842-43, and I know all about it, 
for I was in a fix that made it almost unendurable, and I 
counted every one of its tedious days, looking for a let-up 
every hour which never came until after six long months 
had passed. Talk about cold weather hanging on — why, if 
this region had been as thickly populated then as it is now, 
many people would have perished. It was the coldest 
winter ever known in this Mississippi Valley by w.hite 
men. I will tell you how it was with me, and you will 
see why my memory of it is so clear.' 



97 

"And Mr. McKown entered npon a graphic story of his 
experience in that historic winter of 1842-43. 

" 'A. C. Fnlton was then, as he is now, though forty- 
five years older, one of the most enterprising men in Dav- 
enport, He had a large flatboat built in October, '42, by 
a carpenter named Charlie Anderson, who named the boat 
"Bliza," in honor of a 3'oung lady in the village to whom 
he was engaged. In November Air. Fulton loaded that 
boat with onions and potatoes and intended the cargo for 
the New Orleans market. The crew consisted of Captain 
John Anderson, Charlie Anderson (no relation to each 
other), John McCloskey, a man named King and myself. 
The cargo and boat cost Mr. Fulton eighteen hundred dol- 
lars. We set sail from Davenport on the 17th of Novem- 
ber, with beautiful weather prevailing. Next day it be- 
came cool. The water was low, and it was hard boating, 
I tell you, for ice was forming fast. The third da}^ we 
tied up to Otter Island, five miles above Burlington, to 
w^ait for a thaw. It was frightfully cold — away below zero, 
and the river was soon solid ice. Well, sir, we sta3^ed 
there all winter. We lived on onions and pork — took 
along pork as part of our provisions. All the drink we 
had besides water was a decoction from sarsaparilla root 
which was dug from under the snow — and it thinned our 
blood so that it almost killed us. The man who owned 
Otter Island hired us to chop cord wood at 37^ cents per 
day and take it in orders on a store in Burlington. Money 
was very scarce. We could get no groceries — sugar, tea, 
coffee, flour, and the like — nothing but cornnieal, whisky, 
powder, and dry goods. The only flour we had was ten 
pounds which our employer bought us for Christmas din- 
ner. Oh, that was a dinner! The Sunday before Christ- 
mas the boys shot a wild turkey, a couple of pheasants, 
and three or four hares. There was no finer dinner in the 
land. We had plenty of good whisky. It was a jollj-day.' 

" 'But you are forgetting the temperature, Mr. McKown. 
How cold was it?' 



98 

" 'One of us used to go down to Burlington ever}^ little 
while. There was a thermometer oiitside a store there, 
and it used to register 2^ to j8 degrees below zero! Day 
after day, week after week, the mercury was that low. 
Everybody said it was the coldest winter ever known here. 
I know myself there has been nothing like it since. I 
forgot to tell you one discovery we made. We found two 
bee trees. One was four feet in diameter, but there wasn't 
a pound of honey in it. The other was eighteen inches in 
diameter, a sycamore, and we took seveiity potmds of honey 
from that tree. How about the break-up? Well, sir, there 
was no break-up until the middle of April. We didn't get 
away from that island until the 25th of April. Why, on 
the 1 7th of April the ice bridge at Davenport was still solid 
enough for teams. We got into St. Louis on the 6th day 
of May, seven months after leaving Davenport. There we 
had more bad luck. We ran afoul of a wood flat and sunk 
it. The man sued us for damages; we beat him in court, 
but we had our lawyer's fee to pay. We sold flatboat and 
onions at auction. The onions were spoiled because of a 
leak that was sprung in the hull when we lay at Otter Is- 
land. The net proceeds, after paying the lawyer and the 
auctioneer, were eighty-four dollars. That sum we divid- 
ed among the crew, and we separated. I went to Cincin- 
nati. Mr. Fulton came down to St. Louis to meet us, laughed 
at our stor}^, and said we had done as well as we could, 
but he never went near the boat or its cargo. Only three 
of the crew stayed with it all winter — Charlie Anderson, 
McCloskey and myself. Hvery one of the original crew 
excepting m3^self is dead now. McCloskey was the last 
— he died in Camanche three years ago. 



99 



A Lesson of the PAvST. 
"pioneer history. 



''''Interesting Sketch of Early Days Written by Hon. A. C. 

Fulton for Pioneer Lawmakers — FortJiconiing 

Historical Work. 

"Learning that our citizen, Hon, A. C. Fulton, had 
furnished to the Pioneer Lawmakers a sketch of early days, 
the 'Republican' requested a copj^, which follows: 

"'Davenport, L\., January 7, 1898. 
" 'To Colonel John Scott, President, and the Honorable 
Members of the Pioneer Lawmakers' Association of 
Iowa: 

" 'Gentlemen: A journal now before me informs me that 
I and others are requested to verball}!- or through writing 
lay before the sixth session of the Association our acts and 
recollections of Iowa pioneer days. 

" 'During our sessions of ten years Iowa's historical and 
legislative fields have been well gleaned. Territorial and 
infant State days have been rehearsed by many honorable 
members who have given an interesting history of their 
entrance and the part they took to build up a finished 
world in a wilderness, reducing the labor of those in the 
rear. When each member of the association furnishes his 
page, a fair history of Iowa and beyond will exist. As in 
duty bound I must add my page to histor3^ 

" 'I entered the Mississippi River b}'' Pass a Loutre from 
the Gulf of Mexico in 183 1 under adverse circumstances, 
to immediately ship again for the West Indies, under the 
then good pay of sixteen dollars per month. 
' " 'I again entered that river and in December, 1831, vis- 
ited the then sparcely inhabited States of Mississippi and 
Florida. The population of Mississippi, then numbering 
but 136,690, and that of Florida, but 34,790, Indians not 
included. We had taken possession of Florida and formed 
a Territorial government there but ten 3'ears previous to 



lOO 

my visit. I then settled pennanentl}' in New Orleans. 
I passed a portion of 1835 ^^^^ 1S36 in Texas, then a state 
of Mexico, where life was at a discount and human blood 
freely flowed. 

" 'In 1838 I made a sea voyage from New Orleans to 
New York and journeyed back to New Orleans by land 
over the Allegheny Mountains via Wheeling, Va., and St. 
lyouis, Mo. I quartered for a few days at Vandalia, the 
State capitol of Illinois, on the Kaskaskia River, and at- 
tended the legislature then in session, and debating on the 
question of the removal of the capitol to Chicago or to 
Springfield. Cairo forbade the act of its removal to Chica- 
go, as she was then contending with Chicago for the su- 
premacy. Whilst at Vandalia I entered 160 acres of Uncle 
Sam's land south of and near the capitol city, 

" 'This extended inland journe}^, taking in many large 
States with their mountain passes and their long stretches 
of uninhabited prairie and dilating valleys, startled the 
imagination and presented a wild grandeur never to be for- 
gotten. But appropriate, calls a halt, and orders me to 
the hamlet of Davenport, la., where I made a landing from 
New Orleans on July 4, 1842, now over fifty-five years 
passed and gone. 

" 'I established a general store at the hamlet and almost 
immediatel}^ joined a Mr. William Bennett and Mr. Lam- 
bert, to be a half owner of a water-power created by the 
Wapsipinicon Falls in Buchanan County. Mr. Bennett 
had created a log house with two rooms and a shed-roofed 
kitchen, the first white man's habitation ever erected in 
that county. 

" 'We, with great hardship and labor, dammed the Wap- 
sipinicon River and erected an ordinary frontier grist mill, 
built a warehouse and blacksihith shop. We had to haul 
our sawed lumber from Dubuque, but the bulk of all our lum- 
ber, even the flooring of dwellings, had to be procured from 
the forest with the ax. Oh, my, the task to make a world! 

" 'We fondl}' hoped to plant the metropolis of the great 



lOI 

West at Ouasqueton. On August 4, 1842, the entire pop- 
ulation of Buchanan County numbered fifteen, self included. 

" 'In the spring of 1843, the Buchanan County lands 
were sold at auction in the town of Marion, and I purchased, 
and in Februar}-, 1844, sold the town of Quasqueton to 
William W. Haddin for a mere bagatelle, as the county 
records now witness. 

"'I did not cease mill-building, but in 1847 erected the 
two first steam merchant mills in Scott County, one of 
them costing fourteen thousand dollars. 

" 'Time brought 1854 around and the presidency of the 
State senate caused a deadlock for many days, to the great 
injury of the State. I, a Free-soil Republican, broke from 
my moorings and placed the Hon. M. L. Fisher of Clay ton 
County, an avowed Pro-slavery Democrat, in the prsident's 
chair for which act I received the censure of many. 

" 'During the extra session of 1856 a grant of public 
land for railroad purposes was accepted by the State and 
our railroad laws were enacted and are now amongst the 
laws that exist in their original form. Sailor I had the honor 
to originate and draft those laws, and act as their guardian. 

" 'During the session of 1855, when the main question 
was Nebraska or anti-Nebraska, or the extension of slavery, 
and party lines were strained, the supposed candidate for 
United States senator was a friend and a citizen of my dis- 
trict and who would be one of the arbitrators. But, as I 
had when under trying circumstances at sea, pledged my- 
self ever to battle against human slavery, I had to diso- 
bey the almost unanimous petition of my constituents 
to abandon the Hon. James Harlan, notwithstanding he 
had received but four votes at the previous count. But 
I stood by and saw him elected to make Iowa known at 
home and in distant lands. To have withdrawn would 
decree his defeat. 

" 'I leave the rejection or the confirmation of this mo- 
mentous history with the Hon. James Harlan. 

" 'Respectfull}' 3^ours, 

" 'A. C. Fulton.' 



I02 

"Another good act of vSenator Fulton merits mention 
and preservation, as it was an act of lasting and vital im- 
portance to the people of the state of Iowa: 

"The senate proceedings of December i6, 1S54, now be- 
fore us says: 

" 'Senator Coop, by leave, introduced a bill defining a 
standard weight per bushel for stone coal, and making that 
weight seventy pounds per bushel. 

" 'Senator Fulton moved to strike out "seventy" and in- 
sert "eighty," which, after debate, was adopted. 

thf: tyrant strike. 

On the 9th of August, 1894, when the t3^rant strike was 
in power and was wielding his blighting and destructive 
sceptre to cripple and destroy all and ever}^ enterprise, a 
Davenport journal published as follows: 

"a davenporter complimented. 



''''The Strikes of iSy^^ ^8j^ ^ g^—Investigatijig Committees — 
Huge Report of 188 j — Honors Easy with A. C. Fit /ton 
— His Old 'Gazette" Letters. 

"With the memory so fresh of the late Pullman S3^mpa- 
thetic strikes, with the horrors of human life lost, immense 
destruction of property, and disastrous effects on business 
and commerce, many seem to forget that we have ever be- 
fore suffered from strikes an3^thing so terrible, and probab- 
ly equally unjustifiable in their origin. The Tril)une re- 
cently awakened the memory of some of its older readers 
to the strikes of 1S75, which far surpassed those of this 
year in the loss of life, — over one hundred persons in a 
single night, — and immeasurably greater destruction of 
propert3\ In 1883 there were strikes of coal miners, rail- 
road emplo^'Ces, telegraph operators, etc., more disturbing to 
great business interests than those of to-day. They were 
so serious and widespread as to call the attention of Con- 
gress, and resulted in the appointment of a Senate com- 
mittee to investigate the causes and, if possible, to reconi- 



I03 

mend such legislation as might prevent the recurrence of 
such calamities. This committee was composed of nine 
Senators, representing as many States, but Iowa was not 
one of them. In the same way, at the practical close of 
the strikes of 1894, has the attention of Congress been 
given to these disturbances, and the President, authorized 
to appoint, which has been done, a committee to thorough- 
ly investigate the strikes, the causes of them, the accom- 
paniments of violence, etc., and finally to make its recom- 
mendations or suggestions for legislative action, to provide 
for such security in the future as may be obtained, by ar- 
bitration or otherwise. 

"The Senate Committee of 1883 called before it Jay 
Gould, railroad president; Powderly, the head of the K. of 
Iv.; and lesser lights in labor organizations, with a multi- 
tude of others, and received hundreds of communications 
by mail from both the invited and uninvited. In 1885 the 
committee published, and it was one of the most elaborate 
and exhaustive reports ever made to the United States 
Senate. It was in five large volumes containing altogeth- 
er over five thousand pages. The report comprised a full 
discussion of the labor and capital question then, just as it is 
now, attracting so much attention, with many facts bear- 
ing on the subject. The present committee would do well 
to examine this report, with its facts and figures, before 
proceeding to collate their own. It can obtain both infor- 
mation and useful suggestions for their own work. 

"But this voluminous report gave singular credit or 
paid a high compliment to a citizen of Davenport, Air. A. 
C. Fulton. August i, 1883, in the midst of the strike ex- 
citement, the old 'Gazette,' a paper probably unknown to any 
member of the committee, opened a 'parliament' in its col- 
umns, where ever}^ citizen who had au}' thing to write on the 
strikes, or labor and capital questions, in connection should 
be free to express his opinions, and the communications in 
response were numerous, and some of them peppery. At 
that time Mr. Fulton was confined to bed from the effects 



I04 

of an old wound, and his physician was canvassing the ne- 
cessity of amputating a limb, and even solicituous about 
saving his patient's life. Mr. Fulton, however, was so in- 
terested in the parliament discussions, that he determined 
to take a hand in it. In his diversified and really remark- 
able life, he had worked for $i6 a month and cut wood at 
fifty cents a cord, and, to use his own expression, 'had 
made money out of it,' so he probably' thought he could 
write from his own experience with some intelligence on 
the labor and capital question, although short on the cap- 
ital end. At all events, lying on his back, he wrote two 
letters for the 'Gazette,' covering this question. Here 
comes in the singular fact that, in all the huge volumes 
of the Senate Committee report, these two letters were the 
only ones extracted from newspapers and given in 
full, from among the thousands of letters and articles 
that were published by the press on the capital and 
labor question. They can be found in Vol. 2, pages 
399, 400-1-2. It is strange and complimentary to Mr. Ful- 
ton that his letters should thus have been selected from all 
others, written b}' a ver}^ sick man, and published in a lit- 
tle Iowa paper, comparatively obscure from its influence, 
and location in a small city so far away from the nation's 
capitol. Yet they are plain, practical articles, written 
from a man's own experience in part, and with no rhetori- 
cal flourish, but the gist, the boiled-down substance, of 
what a more fluent writer might have occupied columns 
in saying with less effect. They were, perhaps, precisely 
what the committee wanted as materially assisting their 
work in solving the capital and labor problem. 

"In giving these facts relating to Mr. Fulton's receiving 
a distinguished honor in its way, we only give significance 
at this late day to what has not been published before, yet 
is well to be known as a tribute to a citizen of Davenport 
who yet lives with us." 



I05 

"saved by a candle — A TALE OF PIONEER DAYS IN IOWA. 



The 'Democrat' of November 12, 1893, publishes as fol- 
lows: 

"Mr. Fulton recalls one experience of the winter of '42 
that still makes him shiver and want a heavier coat when- 
ever he thinks of it. He can bring on a chill in midsum- 
mer by reviving its memories. 

"On this memorable occasion he was driving across the 
unmarked prairies of interior Iowa in a cutter, drawn by 
a team of horses. He was out in the neighborhood of In- 
dependence, and had gone there to look up practicable water 
powers, with the idea of building a mill somewhere in that 
neighborhood, for the local manufacture of the wheat that 
was then so plentifully grown by the few farmers who had 
opened farms in that region. He was on his way home, 
on Sunday, February 26, following an unmarked course 
toward his next stopping point, for there were no roads 
out there then. A snow-storm came on. The term bliz- 
zard had not then been given to such phenomena by the 
Dakota sufferers, but this was a blizzard of undoubted 
authority and genuineness. The snow came whirling 
down as it can do in such a storm, hurried along by Arctic 
blasts that were enough to pierce the thickest overcoat 
and overcome the stoutest heart. In a little while the 
horizon line was lost. Earth could not be told from sky. 
Direction was undistinguishable. The instinct of the 
horses was as much baffled as the skill of their driver. 
They were lost on the prairie. 

"Mr. Fulton says he was clad then about as he is now 
in his comings and goings in this fine fall weather, which 
is to say that while he was clothed for comfort at this time 
of the year he was in fine trim for an early death by freez- 
ing in such a storm. He had a buffalo robe, and it was 
about all the protection he had that was worth naming. 
It was useless to stand still. There was no refuge within 
many miles, and it was hardly to be hoped that man or 



io6 

team could live to reach it; but the horses plodded on, 
while the storm held on and the snow whirled past them. 

"The day passed into the night, and still they made 
their way ahead, the direction of the wind being their only 
gnide. They could be sure that it was from the northwest, 
and they held it to their backs and made tracks as fast as 
they could toward the comforts of civilization. Morning 
came and still the storm held. All though Monday, the 
horses, unfed and unwatered and unrested, held their way. 
The man in the sleigh was so stiffened in his buffalo robe 
wrappings that he could not have cared for them if he had 
found a place to alight. Monday night came on, and with 
it no sign of shelter. Monday night passed and Tuesday 
morning dawned, and still the cold was intense, and there 
was no trace of human habitation or possible place of refuge. 
Tuesday dragged its slow length along, but by this time, 
tiresome and torturing as they were, the hours did not 
move slower than the worn-out horses. They had almost 
reached the limit of their endurance and strength, but 
they moved forward at a pace compared with which the 
gate of the average funeral train would have seemed a 
welcome burst of speed. It could barely be called motion. 

"It was with feelings of the deepest despair that Mr. Ful- 
ton saw the light begin to fade on Tuesday afternoon. 
The situation was as hopeless then as it had been before, 
save for the fact that the homes of settlers were a good 
many miles nearer, but with his fagged team a mile might 
mean death. Rescue could not be much longer delayed if 
it was to be worth accepting. In a short time the end would 
surely come. Cold and hunger were doing their work. 
The frozen fingers and the well-nigh frozen arms could 
no longer guide the tottering steps of the poor half-dead 
animals, and they moved, what little they did move, 
without a master's hand. And in this hopeless, pitiless 
condition the miserable party of two horses and their 
master were as night again settled over the white prairies, 
so black with the adandonment of hope that it was no 
longer worth while to think of living. 



I07 

"If the reader can bring himself to imagine this case 
fully and completely, he may be able to understand what 
a tumult of emotions were aroused in Mr. Fulton's breast 
when he caught — for a faint, flickering instant — the dim- 
mest kind of a gleam of light through the blackness which 
rimmed the horizon. It was just a gleam that was speed- 
ily extinguished, and it was too faint and far away to found 
hope upon; but it shone again, and clearer. That light 
meant warmth and food and life, with all that life means; 
but it was so far away, so dim and distant, and the half- 
dead team was so near its last strained effort that it also 
meant the saddest of all deaths — death within sight of es- 
cape and safety. 

"The horses were turned toward that star of hope, and 
they dragged, dragged themselves forward, so slowly and 
painfully that they seemed to stand still. The hours had 
been long with monotonous despair before, but now they 
were long with the agony of fear that the way of escape 
would be barred at the last steps of the retreat. But the 
horses were still alive, though barely so, and barely able 
to move, and they did make progress, though it was so 
slow and distressful. Little by little the light grew plainer. 
What if it should go out? It had been hours since dark 
fell, and the settlers were all men of steady habits, who 
went early to bed. What could keep this particular light 
burning, and how soon might it disappear and leave the 
wanderer in darkness to miss the window from which it 
shone? 

"But it burned on, and after a while it was near enough 
to show the window panes from which its faint rays were 
filtered through the rime of frost, and in time the perish- 
ing party drew up at the door of Farmer McLoughlin's 
humble settler's shanty. A shout called him out, and the 
storm was robbed of its prey. 

"Mr. Fulton was unable to walk. His feet and legs, 
and his hands and arms, and face and ears, were frozen. 
He was carried into the house. Both feet were planted in 



io8 

one bucket of ice-cold snow water, and both arms in another, 
while wet applications of pulped raw onions were laid 
upon his face and ears. The frost was drawn with these 
homely remedies, and amputations and perhaps death was 
averted. The poor horses escaped death by freezing, but 
though all possible care was given them, out of gratitude 
for their heroic effort, they died in a little while, and as 
long as they lived had bare existence. They never had 
the spirit of horses after that three days' pull, from Sun- 
day morning till Tuesday' night at midnight. 

"It was a rare chance that placed that candle beacon in 
Farmer McLoughlin's window. He had killed a beef an- 
imal that Tuesday, and that evening he was seized by an 
unusual fit of industry, and resolved, without any special 
reason for the resolve except a mere whim, to cut up the 
carcass and salt down the meat before he quit work that 
night. The rest of the family retired, but he worked on. 
The candle stood on the table in front of the window, and 
it reached out over the prairie far enough to catch the frosty 
eyes of the man in the cutter and guide him home. 

"During that cold snap, one of the severest of the winter, 
the mercury in this city, quite a distance southward of the 
place where this wandering occurred, registered between 
25° and 28- below zero. It was a wonder that there were 
eyes left to see that candle's light." 

The good reader ma}^ say, "Very severe on the sailor." 
I have to say that the want of food was no hardship at all, 
for I had a more protracted experience in bygone days, 
where others suffered unto death. True, a young man 
perished from the cold not far distant from me on my first 
night out on the prairie; no wonder he perished, for Daven- 
port's two thermometers on that night marked 25^ below 
zero. 



I09 

vSOLDlRRvS' WP^vSTERN HOME. 

As history I wish to record that in 18S4 a Congressional 
Committee was appointed to select a site for the Sol- 
diers' Home of the west. The Davenport Board of Trade 
appointed Editor D. N. Richardson, Hon. S. P. Bryant 
and A. C. Fnlton as a committee to visit or address the 
committee and lay before it the advantages of Davenport 
and vicinity. Editor D. N. Richardson and Hon. S. P. 
Bryant stated that they had their hands fnll of bnsiness, 
and reqnested Sailor I, as chairman to address the angnst 
commissioners, which I did in the words as pnblished in 
the Davenport "Democrat" of Sunday, September 14, 
1884, and which read thus: 

"national soldiers' home. 

'''' Corniniinication of the Board of Trade Coniimttee. 

" 'To the Congressional Committee Appointed to Select a 
Suitable Location for the Soldiers' Home: 
" 'Sirs: The Davenport Board of Trade appointed S. P. 
Bryant, D. N. Richardson and A. C. Fulton as committee 
to address or visit you, and lay before you the advantages 
of Davenport, Scott Count}^, Iowa, as a suitable location 
for the Soldiers' Home of the West. 

" 'The late census will inform you that of the seven 
states from which j^ou are instructed to make your selec- 
tion, Iowa stands first in productiveness, first in intelli- 
gence, second in health and second in morality. 

" 'A healthy location within a healthy state; no low or 
inundated lands in its vicinity, no malaria taints the at- 
mosphere. 

" 'The county and city contain vast ranges of bluff 
lands, elevated one hundred feet above the rivers and 
streams. 

" 'The Mississippi River borders those bluffs on the 
south, and fertile prairies spread out northward; pure 
water can be procured from springs, wells and the river. 
There is coal and wood in abundance. 



no 

" 'The county of Scott is famed as producing every de- 
scription of grain, fruits and plants known to this latitude, 
and is accessible through its rivers and railroads to the 
markets and the granaries of the world. And the city of 
Davenport has ever been the well-stocked storehouse of 
fertile Iowa. Here the great States of Illinois and Iowa 
are joined as one by the government bridge. Here the 
government arsenal works are growing to greatness, and 
here the sailor and the soldier can look upon the steamer 
and the sailing craft. Our churches embrace almost 
every religious sect, and their ministers, priests, and 
bishops are volunteers ever ready for good works. 

" 'We embrace a portion of a Christian State that has 
adopted prohibition, and the people possess intelligence, 
industr}', and every quality of greatness. 

" 'By direction of the committee I thus address you. 
" 'Respectfully Yours, 

" 'A. C. Fulton, Chairman. 
" 'Davenport, la., September 13, 1884.' " 

INDIAN TRIBES. 

A great change has taken place since the early years 
of the last century. Then Indians were constantly to be 
seen in almost every state. 

I feel interested in this people for I have to some extent 
associated with them in many quarters, especiall}'' in the 
Lake Region of Canada, in Mexico, Texas, Florida and 
Iowa and on some of the West India Islands. 

The wild man has ever been found with a nature to 
protect his life and property. Some suppose that Setting 
Bull's defeat and slaughter of General Custer and troops 
was an extraordinary Indian feat. This bold dash for vic- 
tory or death falls far short of that made by Chief Osceola 
(Talking Bird) of the Florida Seminoles, who defeated and 
put Major Dade and his well drilled regiment to death, 
during the Seminole war in the thirties, after he had 
scalped General Thompson. 



Ill 

Nor did the Custer defeat and slaughter compare in 
magnitude to the defeat and slaughter of the British 
troops under Colonel Sanford by the wild Maroons of 
Jamaica under their renowned Chief Cudjoe who had con- 
stantly held the British at bay and placed them on the 
defensive. 

I must place on record to preserve for the distant future, 
the names of the most noted Indian tribes of North Amer- 
ica, leaving out many of the weaker tribes. 

I shall commence at the Northern Lakes and carry my 
momentous history towards the Atlantic, and thence north- 
west to the Pacific ocean, naming the Indian nations who 
were once the lords of the New World, most of whom are 
now blotted from off the earth. 

Upon the southern line of the British dominion, and 
the northern line of Uncle Sam's domain, resided the Hu- 
rons, Mohicannies, Chippewas, Onondagas, Oneidas, Cay- 
ugas, Narragansetts, Pokanokets, Pawtuckets, Ottawas, 
Senicas, Menimences, Pequods, Sacs and Foxes, Mohawks, 
Delawares, Winnebagoes, Lenno-lenapes, Powhatans, Abe- 
nakis, Pottawatomies, Iroquois, Miamis, Shawnees, Kicka- 
poos, Tuscaroras, Meaumies, Kaskaskias, Manahoacks, 
Allegenies, Cherokees, Catawbas, Wyandots, Chickasaws, 
Natches, Choctaws, Yemasees, Mobilians, Creeks, 
Seminoles, Diggers, Missourias, Otoes, lowas, Kansas, 
Sioux, Yanktons, Cheyennes, Blackfeet, Cayuses, Pinios, 
MraiaopaSjUtahs, Utes, Umatillas, Ponchas, Ogalallas, Chr- 
ynns, Mandans, Nez Perces, Gros Ventres, ]\Iodocs, Moun- 
tain Crows, Sans Arc, Alinne-Con-Jous, River Crows, Wichi- 
tas, Comanches, Kiowas, Quapaws, Uncompahare, Sho- 
shones, Araphoes, Apaches. Here I name eighty-one tribes 
or nations, and I pass twenty-one unnamed, and more than 
one of them possessing numbers and courage to be able to 
meet the regular troops of this Union in the open field 
since my day. Where are they now? Yes, where are they? 
Three-fourths of the eighty-one nations have been blotted 
from off the earth, sent to their account without a white 
man's tear. And where are King Philip's and Osceola's 



112 

braves? Of them but a small remnant now remains. 
Most of the remainder of this once numerous and power- 
ful people are now corraled within the Indian reservations 
of the trans-Mississippi. 

A small number of the once powerful, and most intelli- 
gent Indians of ni}- day, the Seminoles of Florida, who 
have now dwindled down to a small band of slaves, in mind 
and soul, as now corraled upon a bleak Western Waste; no 
sunny south, no hallowed tomb, but only a shallow grave 
upon a snow-drift plain, for the descendants of the noble 
and the brave, a miserable remnant of a once great and 
intelligent people, far superior to over one-fifth of America's 
white voting races — the highly favored who claim ofhce 
and command their superiors, and who have named some 
of America's Presidents. 

CALLED ON THF: COURTvS FOR JUSTICE. 

In the sixties, I felt that I had not been rightly treated 
by the taxing and other powers. One wrong I will name. 
I was full and proper owner of thirty by over four hun- 
dred feet. It was wanted for a street; several others had 
larger tracts, and they claimed that cutting off thirty feet 
would be an injury to the remainder, and all were paid 
full value, (I was absent) and the tribunal decreed that 
Fulton sustained no damage as the others, because no land 
remained to be damaged. Not one dollar was awarded to 
Fulton. 

I had some land in the then center of the city, some 
seven blocks from the Court House, that I had paid city 
taxes on during some j^ears. Taking this land alone, I 
might have continued to pa}^, but it appeared to be the 
only large tax point to obtain justice at. I called it farm- 
land. 

I refused to pay city taxes and the City Marshal, Harvey 
Leonard, published the propert}^ for sale. I applied to the 
court for a temporary injunction to stay the sale. The 
learned City Attorne}^ appeared with a basket of well 
bound law books. His first utterance was, that he would 



113 

nip Fulton's foil}- in the bud. He talked and read his 
books for some two hours. I had no books, but the City 
Attorney kindl}^ lent me two of his for a few minutes; after 
which the Judge rose to his feet and said: 

"Taking the law as presented and the pleadings, he had 
to grant the injunction." 

I then carried the City up to the District Court to make 
the injunction perpetual. The City Attorney immediately 
told the Court that he demurred to the petition and made 
a long talk on the subject, but the Court decided that all 
was in proper trim. 

The Judge had been long on duty and desired to place 
this case with its large number of witnesses in the hands 
of a referee to return to the Court his verdict on the law 
and evidence as presented to his Court. 

The City Attorney at the onset bitterly opposed a trans- 
fer. I had named three judges, but in vain. The Court 
suggested Hon. John C. Bills, who the City Attorney 
hesitated to accept until informed by the Attorneys 
opposed to Fulton, that Fulton had lately obtained a ver- 
dict before the County Commissioners Court of sixteen 
judges, and a verdict in the District Court, Hon. John C. 
Bills, attorney for the plaintiff. 

In time Judge Bills took the bench with a large list of 
witnesses and a vast gaping crowd, then after a long and 
learned talk by the City Attorney, occasionally prompted 
by Lawyer Sam Brown, the court decreed that the tem- 
porary injunction be made perpetual. 

Then on the fourth round in the District Court to con- 
firm the verdict of Judge Bills, came the tug of war. The 
whole city and its attorneys \vere excited as never before. 
All were opposed to Fulton's reducing the assessment roll, 
but the court at a late hour confirmed the decree of Judge 
Bills. 

I was requested by the City Attorney to linger a few 
minutes and accept notice to appear before the vSupreme 
Court and defend m3'self. The City Attorney had a book 



114 

printed showing the Conrt the miserable situation I was 
in. In time, we had our fifth round in the deep waters of 
the Supreme Court, and it sustained the lower courts. 
(See Supreme Court Reports, Vol. XVII., Page 404, Ful- 
ton versus the City of Davenport et al. Fulton pro se.) 

I had to succeed to keep the ascendency, and a big bill 
of taxes and costs was at the rear. In time, I divided the 
property and made return to the assessor. 

I had done some successful training in that line before 
more than one court in New Orleans. 

At this period I desired to raise my challenge stake to 
one hundred thousand dollars. 



A MOMENTOUvS RECORD. 

The names and official years of the Presidents of the 
historic pioneers of the Black Hawk hunting grounds, now 
known as Scott County, Iowa. 

Antoine Le Claire, i 1858 Johnson Maw, 24 1881 

Daniel Moore, 25 1882 

John Evans, 26 1883 

Jared P. Hitchcock, 27 1884 
Alfred C. Billon, 28 1885 
Backus Birchard, 29 1886 
James Thorington, 30 1887 
Gen. Add. H. San- 
ders, 31 1888 
D.P. McKown, 32 1889 
John Lambert, 33 1890 
Capt. W. L. Clark, 34 1891 
Wm. M. Suiter, 35 1892 
John Littig, 36 1893 
Jacob M. Eldridge, 37 1894 
John M. Lyter, 38 1895 
George J. Hyde, 39 1896 
Andrew Jack, 40 1897 
A. C. Fulton, 41 1898 
Henry Parmele, 42 1899 



Antoine Le Claire, 


2 


1859 


Ebenezer Cook, 


3 


i860 


D. E. Eldridge, 


4 


1861 


Willard Bawrows, 


5 


1862 


John Owens, 


6 


1863 


James M. Bowling, 


7 


1864 


Harvey Leonard, 


8 


1865 


James McCosh, 


9 


1866 


Israel Hall, 


10 


1867 


James Grant, 


II 


1868 


J. Parker, 


12 


1869 


Charles Metteer, 


13 


1870 


Dr. E. S. Barrows, 


14 


1871 


Wm. L. Cook, 


15 


1872 


Dr. James Hall, 


16 


1873 


C. G. Blood, 


17 


1874 


Philip vSuiter, 


18 


1875 


M. S. Collins, 


19 


1876 


Wm. Van Tuyl, 


20 


1877 



115 

Horace Bradley, 2i 1878 L. W. demons, 43 1900 
J. B. Burnside, 22 1879 Jesse L. Armil, 44 1901 

Enoch Mead 23 1880 James D^-er, 45 1902 

A CHAPTER OF LOCAL HISTORY. 

It is dne to the pioneers, and to a coming people, that I 
should speak of that remarkable man, Antoine Le Claire. 
Our twice President. 

To show his worth and greatness, I will rehearse that 
which I wrote and published, in ni}- life's voj-age. 

On reaching the hunting grounds of the Sacs and Foxes, 
and their Pottowatomie allies, I here found the most re- 
markable man west of the Father of Waters; he was a 
half-breed Pottowatomie Indian, Mr. Antoine Le Claire; 
he spoke French and English fluentl}^, as well as his own 
and several Indian dialects. He had on man}' occasions 
been United States interpreter. He was taught in mau}^ 
branches of learning by a French missionar}- priest, and 
later he entered an English school through the influence 
of Governor Clark of Missouri; he was the white man's 
peer in all that makes a man. 

When the Sacs and Foxes parted with their first Iowa 
lands, and established the treaty line of 1832, he was Uncle 
Sam's interpreter. In that treat}- one of the stipulations 
exacted by the Indian Chief Keokuk, who was the dusky 
Cromwell of his day, was that xA>.ntoine Le Claire should 
have a tract of land one mile square at the foot, and a tract 
one mile square at the head of the upper rapids of the 
Mississippi River; on both of those tracts Mr. Le Claire 
laid off a town, which made him a wealthy man. He 
was sober and possessed no vices, but he was too liberal 
and kind; he went securit}' and endorsed for the white 
man, to his great injury. The county records witnessed 
and published history records and preserved the evidence 
of his useful and active life. Black Hawk, the warrior 
and diplomat, and Keokuk, the renowned orator who 
rose from the ranks to be a power of strength, and An- 
toine Le Claire, were giants in their day; seldom have 



ii6 

three greater pale-faced men lived and conimnned to- 
gether in the walks of life, and been more noted in his- 
tory than the trio here place on my record. To recite 
Chief Black Hawk's strategy and bravery in protecting 
his Rock River home when attacked by West Point gen- 
erals, and thrice his number of well armed and drilled 
whites, would require a large volume, if written and pic- 
tured up to life as acted. 

But the most galling and unkindest cut of all, came 
when the subordinate and plebeian Keokuk, whom he 
despised, was placed by the arbitrary white man over him, 
through Keokuk's diplomacy, as the head of his nation, to 
reduce him, a more than Hercules, to the lower ranks. 

Keokuk (Watchful Fox) rose from obscurity by force of 
talents; he was an orator without a rival within the Indian 
nations of his day, and like Tecumseh, it would have been 
difficult to find his superior in the white man's ranks. He 
was the white man's constant and reliable friend, and saved 
the scalps of man}^ whites who possessed no compassion 
for the poor Indian. His well-timed words sparkled with 
brilliant light and power, conclusive evidence that they 
issued from a powerful and pure fountain. His vivid talent 
was evident in every sentence and in every word. He pos- 
sessed an oratory power that a Gladstone might env}^; brave 
and generous in ever}^ act and walk of his eventful life; in 
person muscular and active; an athlete wifti a graceful 
form and fine features, and possessing the ability to control 
and govern the wildest of creation's man. 

When I made my journey of exploration in 1838, through 
the wild West, and arrived at St. Louis, Mo., this renowned 
Indian chief, Keokuk, the father of one of Iowa's cities, 
was there on official business with Uncle Sam. I was in- 
vited, and when I approached Chief Keokuk, he openly 
asked one of the officials if I was a brave. After being 
satisfied on that point, he extended to me his dusky but 
tapering fingered and delicate hand, with the dignit}^ of a 
General Scott, and when it reached my rough hand the 



ii7 

tapering fingers closed in gentle clasp, and lingered as 
thongli he was absorbing greatness through the grasp. 
And whilst I retained and felt the pressure of the hand of 
the greatest living monarch of the forest and the plain, my 
thoughts with the velocit}^ of the lightning's flash rushed 
me back to my Mississippi canebrake couch, and my fore- 
castle home, with my ration of hard tack, and beans, 
tossed before me on the forward deck. 

The Pottowottomie, Antoine Le Claire, was one of my 
earliest associates in business transactions on the frontier; 
I had extensive dealings with him; as a record I desire to 
name one of them: I purchased from him an extensive 
tract of land, what is known as East Davenport, embracing 
the now Democrat Farm, the waterworks and sawmill prop- 
erty, and extending north to Oakdale Cemetery. Hast 
Davenport at an early day was an independent city, with 
its city council, but the city proper had borrowed three 
hundred thousand dollars, and wasted full one-half of it, 
and in I c?5 7 annexed Hast Davenport through an act of 
the legislature, to aid in paying the interest on the large 
sum of money already consumed, an unrighteous act! 

Antoine Le Claire was born December 15, 1797, at St. 
Joseph, Mich.; his father was a Canadian Frenchman; his 
mother a granddaughter of a Pottowottomie chief. At 
that period the red man was the possessor of the vast north- 
west; but few whites mingled with them; they were the 
monarchs of all they survej^ed. In i^'i4 Le Claire pushed 
westward to the Mississippi River, and Colonel George 
Davenport told me that he first sighted him when a boy, 
paddling a canoe on the Illinois River, near where Peoria 
now stands, with another Indian boy, both wrapped in 
their Indian blankets. 

Mr. George Davenport was born in iji^'y^ when in his 
seventeenth year he went to sea, and was a sailor during 
four years; then he enlisted in Penns^dvania as a soldier. 
He landed on the island of Rock Island on the tenth da}- 
May, icVi6, as the army sutler; Colonel Lawrence in com- 
mand of the troops, who immediately went to work cutting 



ii8 

timber on the island to build a fort for their protection 
against the Sacs and Foxes, and their allies the Pottowot- 
tomies, who had been goaded by the white settlers to frenzy; 
even their growing corn having been plowed up b}^ the 
white invaders. 

This fort was called Fort Armstrong, named after Gen- 
eral Armstrong; then in itV32, came the Asiatic cholera, 
to carry to their graves one-half of the garrison's forces. 

In icy30 Mr. George Davenport journej^ed to the capitol 
at Washington, to endeavor to induce the Government 
through the President and Secretary- of War, to dea,\ 
friendly with Black Hawk and his tribe, and appropriate 
a few thousand dollars to pay for their lands, damage, and 
friendship, but President Jackson treated Mr. Davenport 
with haught}^ contempt, and he returned to the frontier 
disgusted. 

Then came the noted battle of the Bad Ax; no, not a 
battle, but a massacre, where hundreds of women and little 
children were shot to death in their camp and on their re- 
treat, and other hundreds perished from cold, starvation 
and drowning in the streams that they attempted to swim 
or ford in their flight from rifle balls; yet, in concert 
with Bn gland and the Hessians, we with horror cry, Turk- 
ish Armenia! 

In time, when the cit}- of Davenport, la., was founded, 
it was named Davenport in honor of Mr. George Davenport, 
for his worth and business energ\\ 

Mr. George Davenport, the sailor, soldier, [and the fron- 
tier adventurer, was stricken down ,by the hands of assas- 
sins and robbers, when alone in his own house on Rock 
Island, on the Fourth of July, 1845, when in his sixt}-- 
second year of age. 

In 1820 Mr. Le Claire married the daughter of the chief 
Acoqua (The Kettle) at Peoria, 111. Sailor I, at balls of 
the upper ten, have danced French cotillions with IMr. Le 
Claire's Indian squaw, a lady of talent and refinement that 
would have graced more palatial quarters than the West- 
ern frontier furnished. 



119 

Mr. Le Claire was Iowa's first justice of the j^eace, his 
jurisdiction extended from Dubuque to Burlington. He 
was also Davenport's first postmaster in 1833. His acts of 
worth are recorded on the national archives, and within 
the hearts of many. 

In 1858 Mr. Antoine Le Claire had the distinguished 
honor of being elected as the first president of the Scott 
County Iowa Pioneer Association. Then, in icS'97, Sailor I 
w^as elected to the same honorable office by the veterans 
who subdued a vast wilderness. 

Sailor I do verily believe that the Indian Antoine Le 
Claire and his good and noble wife gave more time and 
more money in building up the Catholic churches of Iowa 
than any ten w^hites in the state; they, besides giving large 
sums of money, from time to time, gave to the church so- 
ciety of Davenport an entire block of ground in the cen- 
ter of the city of Davenport, containing four acres less 
half of the streets, and at their own cost erected a stone 
church on the four acres, on one front of which ground 
thirteen stores, built by the tenants, now stand, and pay a 
large ground rent and all taxes, and three other stores 
built b}^ the income of the property pay large rents to the 
Catholics of the diocese. 

The second four-acre block on the bluff, with a brick 
church built on it, was given to a congregation; the gift of 
paying propert}^ will support those churches to the end of 
time. Within the grounds of this last gift the noble 
twain were laid to rest after death b}' their friends and 
kin, but heartless pale-face strangers came on the scene 
and unceremoniousl}' tossed the good and great from out 
their sacred chosen tombs, to place their remains within a 
third-class lot of an extensive cemetery on the wide prairie 
that the Indian had given to the pale-face congregation; a 
tract of land sufficient in extent to entomb five thousand; 
but it matters not; the}^ were but Indians, and Indians can- 
not be wronged in life or death. 

When they rested in their chosen tombs, hundreds who 




I20 

passed the sacred spot offered up unfeigned prayers to the 
great Supreme for the worthy twain. How is it now, 
where once stood that humble monument in the church- 
yard corner? Naught but vacancy exists to distress the 
eye. 

The remains of the worthy natives should without 
grudge be returned to their desired tombs. Sailor I feel 
it a duty to aid in that direction. I stepped off the church 
ground as I had done when an invader and a spy in Cuba, 
and found the once location of the tomb to be over one 
hundred feet from any and all buildings; if there was no 
room, then demolish or move a church and give them back 
their tomb; kind Heaven would smile upon and applaud 
the act. 

Good reader, you say that an appeal should be made to 
the home clergy or Cardinal Satolli, to right the great 
wrong; I answer, it would be just as efhcient to attempt to 
whistle down a Kansas cyclone. 

When off watch I must personally go to headcjuarters 
and knock at the gates of the Vatican, or forward this, my 
appeal, to his Holiness Pope L-eo XHL, or his successor, 
to right the great wrong. 

And when within the Vatican, I will with hope and un- 
feigned meekness say. Please, please give Antoine Le 
Claire, under whose tawny Indian skin rested a heart and 
soulof pure whiteness, give them back their tomb, and 
the inh^itance of the celestial world, will applaud the act. 

I have written and begged his Holiness, Pope Leo XHL, 
to give the noble twain back their tomb, and I enclosed 
the above facts. 

CUBA IN SPANISH DAYS. 



I had known Cuba and its people during two gener- 
ations and took an interest in them and in the island. 
When General Weyler in the seventies had starved and 
shot or driven thousands of Cubans to the mountains, and 
into exile. Many sought safety on Key West and adjacent 



121 

keys. I visited Key West and Cuba, and occurrences took 
place too lengthy here to mention. 

To make my location and Cuba's situation known, I 
wrote the Davenport Gazette as follows: 

"CUBA AND KEY WEvST — THE CLIMATE, POPULATION AND 
RESOURCEvS OF THOSE ISLANDS. 

"Havana, Cuba, March, 1881. 
"Editor of the 'Gazette:' 

"I have made eight voyages over and on the Gulf in 
this latitude, but never witnessed a more boisterous sea 
than we buffeted during the first thirty-six hours of our out- 
ward voyage, and this was the experience of our captain, 
who numbers up his voyages by hundreds. A description 
would be but to repeat many like scenes. One occurrence 
will suffice. During the night a vast towering wave 
dashed with fury over the berthdeck, carrying the captain 
with it to the very verge; he saved himself from a watery 
grave by seizing a rope in his rapid passage. At one period 
many passengers surrounded the captain, lamenting their 
situation; he replied: 'Persons who go to sea must trust to 
God, and those who cannot trust him should stay on shore.' 
I have heard sermons on shore, and four funeral sermons 
at sea, but in my opinion I never heard a shorter or better 
one than the captain's, which to be appreciated, should 
have been seen with the surroundings as well as heard. 
God and our kind captain, Mr. Wm. N. Cookey^^ landed 
the good steamer 'Admiral,' of the Pensacola and Havana 
line, safely within Spain's dominon. 

"Not many days since the passenger steamer 'Josephine' 
of the New Orleans and Havana line, was wrecked on the 
Gulf; providentially, a towboat was within signal distance, 
and saved the passengers and crew from an untimely death. 

"I must write a few lines respecting nature's greatest 
wonder, the Gulf Stream; we might call it a vast river flow- 
ing through the Atlantic Ocean. It rises or starts near 
Belize, in South America, and passes eastward by Cape 



122 

Florida, the Bahamas, Cape Hatteras, and dies out or loses 
itself on the banks of Newfoundland. In deep sea it is 
loo miles wide, but increases when passing over shoals. 
It flows with a velocity of 3 to 4 miles an hour, and is ele- 
vated 3 or 4 feet above the ocean. Its temperature is from 
6° to 8° higher than that of the surrounding water. 

"In 1 83 1, during a dead calm, I threw myself from the 
deck of a brig to test its velocity by swimming against its 
current suflicient, as I judged, to hold myself stationary 
whilst the brig would drift with the flow, but in less than 
three minutes she drifted several lengths from me, and it 
was by great exertion that I gained her deck, almost ex- 
hausted, and added nothing to the cause of science, but 
ran a great risk, as the brig in the calm could not move one 
inch towards me; the boats were lashed down, and it would 
require time to free and launch them, and further, the 
Gulf is as well stocked with sharks as a village with dogs. 

"The island of Key West is a portion of the State of 
Florida, and is the most southerly point of Uncle Sam's 
dominion. It lies 80 miles distant from the island of Cuba. 

"Its average width is 2 miles, and length 7 miles, and it 
is almost all composed of rock resting about 12 feet above 
the level of the sea. On many portions of the island no 
earth covers the rock, at others there is sufficient to have 
productive gardens. Cocoanut and banana trees, the lat- 
ter with their leaves fully 4 feet in length and nearly i 
foot in width; they subsist with very little soil, forcing 
their roots within the crevices of the rocks. There is no fresh 
water on the island; the supply is obtained from distilled 
sea water and rain. The city of Key West possesses a 
good harbor, and contains almost the entire population of 
the island. The next census will give the city a population 
of about 1 1 ,000. 

"There are many handsome residences and four churches; 
there are near the city salt-water baths, and a large and 
handsome artificial lake; there is no timber, even for fuel, 
on the Island, and the supply comes from the smaller but 



123 

more favored adjacent islands. All the building lumber, 
as well as bricks, is brought from Pensacola. 

"The United States has a marine hospital and barracks 
here, and here also are the headquarters of the wreckers 
of the Gulf, some of the descendants of the wild men 
of the Antilles; they are men inured to hardship and fear- 
less lives. 

"Key West has a world-wide reputation for cigar manu- 
factories, and here is where three-fourths of your Havana 
cigars are made, by an army of nearly 3,000 cigar-makers, 
one firm employing 700 hands; and latel}^ two of the larg- 
est firms undertook to monopolize the Cuban tobacco crop, 
but went under. This has thrown over 1,000 hands out 
of employment and affected the business of the whole island. 

"The city of Havana, Cuba, lies on the banks of a spa- 
cious bay, about 625 miles' sail from New Orleans. I find 
the change during the past fifty years within the then 
old city to be very trifling. A large portion of the build- 
ings, and the same streets 20 to 30 feet wide, their 2 to 3 
feet sidewalks remain just the same, but square stone 
blocks imported from New York have taken the place of 
the then earth roadways. Those narrow streets are only 
of sufficient width for two teams to pass without colliding, 
yet a vast amount of business is transacted on them. In 
the more modern portions of the city the width of both 
streets and walks has been increased, and their roadways 
are mostly macadam. 

"The city contains 250,000 inhabitants, ninetj^-five per 
cent, of whom are Spaniards. There are 6 journals pub- 
lished in the city, all in the Spanish language. The city 
is lighted by gas manufactured from English coal, and is 
supplied with an abundance of pure water from vast springs 
in the mountains, a chain of which runs through the islands; 
the altitude of a portion of it rises 5,000 feet above the sea. 
Many of the coffee estates are on the mountain sides. 
The city has street railroads and many expansive and 
massive hotels and public buildings. 



124 

"No building, public or private, has chimneys, except 
kitchens, heat not being used at all. Hotel beds, even in 
the best hotels, charging $4 a day, consist of an elevated 
iron or wooden frame called a cot, over which a piece of 
canvas is stretched; some have fine woven wire instead of 
canvas; none have mattresses; a single sheet, blanket, and 
pillow is a full outfit, and many do not possess even these, 
as they are considered an unnecessary luxury. 

"The sugar crop of the island amounts to $50,000,000 
annually, and the tobacco, raw and manufactured, over 
$25,000,000. Logwood, braselete wood, mahogany, and 
fruit swell the exports to over f 80,000,000, and not over 
one-half of the island is under cultivation; and without 
doubt the sun does not shine on a more productive land. 
Kighty per cent, of this vast product is produced through 
slave labor, but there is a gradual emancipation act now in 
force. 

"I observed more native Africans here than were to be 
seen in Louisiana in my day. They are mostly of old or 
middle age, as very few have been imported from Africa 
during the past fifteen years. The island varies in width 
from 40 to 140 miles, and is 700 miles in length and has 
over 800 miles of railroad. 

"The autocrat Governor General procures for the Spanish 
crown, through taxation of the people of the island, over 
$30,000,000 annually. The debt created through the late 
rebellion is all charged to the rebellious island, and has to 
be paid by it through taxation on her products, not by the 
nation at large. Spain's programme differs slightly from 
that of Uncle Sam's; the tax-paying natives, being feared, 
are seldom if ever permitted to hold office. 

"All religions have been tolerated for the past three 
years throughout Spain and her provinces, but there are 
no congregations or churches there except Catholic. Their 
congregations are principally composed of women and 
children, with a few old men who expect to die soon. The 
government builds and supports its churches and paj^s its 



125 

preachers. Missionaries of various creeds occasionally 
hold service at the hotels. 

"We foreigners on landing here, do not inquire where 
the voting is going on, that we wish to help our friends at 
the polls in carrying the personal liberty ticket, or in 
electing Jackson, as has been done on Uncle Sam's side 
of the Gulf. The law permits no man to vote, even at a 
city election, who does not pay a tax of $25, and no man 
can vote for a member of the Cortes or Congress who does 
not pay a tax of $200. 

"If you desire to visit Cuba you must get a passport 
from a Spanish consul, for which you pay $4. No vessel 
will carry you, nor can you land without one, and before 
you can depart you must go to the Palace Grand, pay 25 
cents for a stamp, and 50 cents to cancel it; without this 
3'-ou cannot purchase a ticket to go with, and an officer 
boards the vessel to see that you depart. 

"No vessel is permitted to come to the shore, but must 
anchor off and land and receive all her freight and passen- 
gers by lighter and smaller boats. When you anchor, a 
police officer and two customhouse officers board your ship 
and remain with you, feasting at your table free of cost 
until you weigh anchor to depart. 

"Should you violate or defy the law or attempt to depart, 
there stand at the bay's entrance the Morro and Blanco 
castles, with their open and capacious-mouthed cannon 
prepared to belch forth their iron hail and mimic the 
thunders of heaven. 

"If we foreigners complain of the Spanish laws or their 
formalities, we are told, and no doubt rightly, that if the 
situation is not agreeable to us to keep away; that we did 
not come into the country to benefit Spain or the Spaniards, 
but our-selves. Yours, 

"A. C. Fulton." 

Without a shadow of doubt the Spaniards trul}' spoke. 



126 



SCOTT COUNTY FRKMONT CLUB, 



Mr. J. H. Camp, President of the Scott County Fremont 
Club, published the acts of that association. I will there- 
fore name a portion of President Camp's report, to the an- 
cient pioneers; as it embraces more recent Fremont j-ears. 
The Fremont supporters in session assembled to give the 
union trusty rulers, William McKinlej^ and Theodore 
Roosevelt. Mr. Camp, in his publication, sa\^s: 

"On October 6, 1900, a call was issued to the Republi- 
cans of Scott county, who were among the organizers of 
the Republican party, to a meeting to be held at the Re- 
publican headquarters of the Scott county central commit- 
tee in the McManus building, October 9, 1900, at which 
meeting the following persons were present: 

"Colonel Henry Egbert, Colonel A. L. Mitchell, Hon. 
A. C. Fulton, G. F. Knostman, Robert Osborn, E. P. Sack- 
ett, H. D. Fish, D. A. Burrows, J. H. Camp, Val. Laux, 
H. J Flint, H. P. Wheeler and W. W. Webster. 

"The meeting was called to order by J. H, Camp, and a 
temporary organization was formed, of which G. F. Knost- 
man was elected temporary chairman and L. T. Eads sec- 
retary. Several speeches were made. Twenty-seven 
members were admitted and much enthusiasm was dis- 
played. The meeting adjourned to meet at the same place 
the following Saturday at 2 p. m., and at that date a large 
and enthusiastic meeting was called to ofder by the chair- 
man, G. F. Knostman. A motion was made and unani- 
mously adopted to make the organization permanent, and 
the following officers were then elected for one year: 
President, J. H. Camp; vice president, G. F. Knostman; sec- 
retary, L. T. Eads; treasurer, Val. Laux. A motion was 
adopted that a committee of three be appointed by the 
chair to draft resolutions expressing the sentiments of the 
meeting and also to draft a constitution, by-laws, and rules 
of order. The following members were then appointed as 
such committee: Hon. A. C. Fulton, Rev. F. I. Moffatt 
and E. T. Eads, who reported some excellent resolutions 



127 

and also a constitution, by-laws and rules of order, which 
were, on motion, unanimously adopted. At this meeting 
28 members were admitted and a number of short address- 
es made. The meeting then adjourned to meet on Satur- 
day, Oct. 20, inst., at the same place. 

"The club met according to adjournment, the president, 
J. H. Camp, in the chair. Great enthusiasm was dis- 
played, the regular order of business was gone through, 
speeches were called for and the following members re- 
sponded, viz: Col. Add. H. Sanders, Hon. A. C. Fulton, 
Rev. F. I. Moffatt, Thomas Winkless and many others. 
Capt. Lon Bryson of the county Republican central com- 
mittee being present was called on by the president to ad- 
dress the meeting and he responded with a fine address 
which was warmly received as were the remarks of the 
others who spoke. Thirty-four members were enrolled, 
and the meeting adjourned to Saturday, Oct. 27, inst. 

"The meeting was held according to adjournment and 
adjourned to Nov. 2, just before the close of the McKinley 
and Roosevelt campaign, both of which meetings was 
presided over by the president of the club and were large- 
ly attended. Tvlany excellent speeches were made by 
members of the club and much enthusiasm was displayed 
in regard to the election of McKinley and Roosevelt. 
Forty new members were admitted at these two meetings 
and placed on the roll. A resolution was passed instruct- 
ing each member to consider himself a committee of one 
to go to the polls on the following Tuesday and vote and 
work for McKinley and Roosevelt and the whole Republi- 
can ticket, and also see that all his neighbors did the 
same. The meeting then adjourned subject to the call of 
the president. 

"A call was made by the president for a meeting to be 
held on Saturday, Nov. 9, following the presidential elec- 
tion, for the purpose of ratifying the great Republican 
victory and having a good social time, and also to talk 
over reminiscences of Fremont and the great campaign of 
1856. 



128 

"The meeting was called to order by the president who 
stated that the object of the call was to have a "good 
time" in celebrating our glorious victory and that short 
speeches and reminiscences of former campaigns would be 
in order. Much enthusiasm was shown and short and en- 
thusiastic speeches were made by Col. Mitchell, Gen. Add. 
H. Sanders, Rev. F. I. Moffatt, Hon. A. C. Fulton, Rob- 
ert Osborn, J. J. Humphry, Marsh Noe and many others, 
and many interesting incidents of former campaigns of 
1856 and others were related. A song — "Oh, Would I 
Were a Boy Again," was sung by Thomas Winkless, 
which was very enthusiastically received and enjoyed by 
the club. A general letter to the Fremont voters of Iowa 
was received from Mrs. Fremont and read by the secretary 
and he was instructed to answer the same, extending to 
her the thanks of the association. Adjournment was ta- 
ken until the next regular annual meeting in September, 
1901. 

"The regular annual meeting in September, 1901, was 
called to order by the president with quite a large number 
in attendance. After regular order of business had been 
gone through, the election of officers for the ensuing year 
was taken up and on motion all the officers were unani- 
mously re-elected. Hon. A. C. Fulton was elected second 
vice president. The secretary then read a letter from 
Mrs. Fremont at Los Angeles, Cal., in answer to one 
written by him, thanking the club for the interest taken 
by our association to perpetuate and honor the name of 
her late husband, the great Pathfinder, and the first nomi- 
nee for president of the great Republican party, which 
was on motion placed on file. Many short and interest- 
ing speeches were made by the members of the club. Mr. 
Harry Peacock, one of Fremont's body guard, being pres- 
ent, was called on by the president and gave the club a 
very interesting address, relating many incidents in his 
connection with the services of the body guard of General 
John C. Fremont and battles fought under Zargonia. A 



129 

motion was then made and carried that the club attend in 
a body the Republican meeting to be addressed by Hon. 
A. B. Cummins, the nominee for governor, November i, 
at the opera house. The secretary was instructed to keep 
a mortuary list of all deceased members. The meeting 
then adjourned until the next regular annual meeting, or 
at the call of the president. 

"Pursuant to the call of the president a large number of 
the members met and marched in a body headed by the 
president to the opera house to welcome our candidate for 
governor, A. B. Cummins. Special seats were reserved 
for the club." 

OUR COUNTY OF SCOTT. 



The Population of Scott Comity by the Last U. S. Census 
IV as S^ )559 Persons. 

1900. 

Allen Grove township - - 797 

Blue Grass township, including Walcott town 1,307 

Walcott town 362 

Buffalo township, including Buffalo town 1,328 

Buffalo town 372 

Butler township 912 

Cleona township .,. 775 

Hickory Grove township 927 

Le Claire township, including Le Claire town 1,703 

Le Claire town -. ..- 997 

Liberty township 979 

Lincoln township 753 

Pleasant Valley township 808 

Princeton township, including Princeton town 972 

Princeton town 456 

Rockingham township... 403 

Sheridan township, including Bldridge town 1,140 

Hldridge town 207 

Winfield township 880 



I30 

Davenport township 2 ,620 

Davenport City township, coextensive with Dav- 
enport city 35)254 

Davenport city: 

First ward .- - - 3)347 

Second ward - .- 6,270 

Third ward 7jI 30 

Fourth ward -. 6,372 

Fifth ward _.._ -. 6,557 

Sixth ward - 5, 608 



IN RlilTIlOSI^ECTIOJN. 



By the Hon. Ambrose C. Fulton, 
who lived through nine-tenthvs of the past century. 



Sailor /, Writes for the Reptiblicmi^ an Article Covering 
Important Achievements of the Past, Many of 
U'hich in the Last Ninety Years Came 
Under His Personal Obser- 
vation. 



Editor of the Republican: 

Dear Sir: — You ask me to jot down departed times bi- 
ography. I suppose you look on old Sailor I, as a con- 
necting link between the 17th and 19th centuries. The 
biography will present a multiplicity of stirring events, that 
will bewilder the imagination and cause your readers to ex- 
claim, a wonderful past! I know and will say, a convincing 
array of facts which can never be antiquated. But space 
compels me to cut near two centuries down to the ver}' verge 
of destruction. 

In 1 501 African slavery was authorized by the Spanish 
crown. In 151 1 Don Diego Velasques, with his Spanish 
troops, raided Cuba and conquered the Indians after great 
slaughter. In 15 13, Balboa, a Spanish cavalier, crossed 
over the Cordilleras and was the first known person to sight 
the great Pacific ocean and there gave it its name. In 1524 
Spanish missionaries entered our now Texas and erected 
vast churches, with stone arched ceilings, within the mas- 
sive walls of which chants and prayers were offered up to 
the great Supreme, and where the uncivilized Cado and 
Camanche bowed his head before the Holy Cross. In one 
of which in Revolutionar}^ days of 1835, I for a brief time 
quartered. No chant or prayer then, all was quiet and 
still as darkness. 

The first habitation for a white man, in now New York, 
was erected in 1610, Previous to 1641 Massachusetts and 



132 

New Hampshire were one state. In 1644 Massaclinsetts 
sent ont the first missionaries to convert the Indians. In 
June, 1649, Charles the First of England was beheaded. 
The monarchy was declared abolished and England to be 
henceforth a commonwealth. In 1654 Oliver Cromw^ell's 
ships and troops entered the New World and took posses- 
sion of Nova Scotia. 

The first American flag was unfurled by Washington 
on January i, 1776, now 124 years past and gone. In 
August, 1 776, one of the most disastrous battles of the Revo- 
lution took place at Flatbush, near New York. Generals 
Howe and Clinton commanded the British forces, and the 
German General Heister, commanded the Hessians, who 
slaughtered hundreds of retreating Americans. On the 
19th of April, 1782, Holland recognized the independence 
of the United States. On April 11, 1783, the American 
congress proclaimed a cessation of hostilities against Great 
Britain, and an independent republic sprang to life. 

On November i, 1784, congress assembled at Trenton, 
N. J., a town but lately the headquarters of the British 
General Howe and his Hessian troops under Generals 
Knyphausen and Count Donope, who was the Nero of his 
day, and who laid waste Western New Jersey and Eastern 
Pennsylvania, previously the garden of the states. 

In the early years of the past century, gray-haired 
mothers whose eyes had not yet ceased weeping, did path- 
etically rehearse to me the horrors of that day, when the 
torch had consumed their homes they had on their 
bended knees knelt on the cold earth and prayed the Great 
Supreme to give them bread and protect their offspring 
from ruthless hands. 

In 1 790 the first Sunday school in the United States was 
organized in Philadelphia. The first patent right law 
was passed on the 15th day of April, 1790. The first cen- 
sus was taken in 1790 and gave us a population of 3,929,- 
827, now increased to 76,304,799. 

In 1798 congress passed an act suspending commercial 



133 

relations with France. Soon the sloop of war, Delaware, 
Commander Decatur, captured a French privateer, name 
obliterated, and the American Constellation, defeated and 
took possession of the superior French ship of war, Ires- 
enta as a prize and many of her merchants vessels were 
captured as prizes of war. Napoleon Bonaparte, having 
obtained absolute power in 1799, peace was made with 
France. 

In 1798 the naturalization laws were amended, requir- 
ing a residence in this countr}^ of 14 ^^ears, instead of five, 
before becoming a citizen. 

In 1899 the New York legislature passed an act for the 
gradual emancipation of the slaves, in that state, and 
Georgia prohibited the importation of African slaves into 
the state in 1798. Some other Southern states had pre- 
ceded her, as imported slaves affected the home market. 

The great Washington took his flight from earth to the 
home of the blessed December 14, 1799. 

The Indian tribes or Nations in North America, between 
the Atlantic and the Pacific, numbered 81. Many of those 
nations were able to hold our troops at bay and have de- 
feated well armed and drilled armies. Where are they 
now? Most of them beneath the earth. 

In 1800 the capitol was removed to Washington, and 
both houses assembled and held a session in the unfinished 
building. The census of 1800 show^ed our population to 
be 5,305,427, of which 897,848 were slaves. New York 
City numbered 60,489; Philadelphia, 40,010; Boston, 24,935. 

In 1802 the naturalization laws of 1798, which required 
a foreigner to reside in this country 14 years, before being 
admitted to citizenship, was reduced to five years, after 
long and strong opposition. A vast lobb}- of passenger 
ship owners, agents and immigrant runners worked for 
repeal. 

In 1803 the United vStates purchased Louisiana from 
France for $15,000,000, and in this year, 1803, congress 
made a donation for propagating the Gospel among the 
heathen. 



134 

In August, 1807, Robert Fulton ascended the Hudson 
river with his passenger steamboat, the Clermont. 

An independent republic was formed in Argentine in 
1801. The census of 1810 gave us a population of 7,239,- 
814. On November 17, 1811, General Harrison defeated 
Chief Tecumseh and his combined tribes at Tippecanoe. 

President Madison and congress declared war against 
Great Britain on June 18, 181 2. In June, 1814, Great Brit- 
ain offered to treat for peace, and the United States ap- 
pointed peace commissioners. In January, 1815, after the 
peace treaty had been signed. General Packingham made 
battle with the Americans under General Jackson and was 
defeated and slain on Chalmette's battle field, on January 
8, 1815, and his body was shipped to old England in a 
cask of New England rum. 

On the i8th of June, 1815, Napoleon the first, who sold 
us Louisiana in 1803, was defeated at Waterloo and exiled 
to the Island of St. Helena, where he died on the 5th of 
May, 1821. 

In 1814 the Dey of Algiers declared and made war on 
the United States. Commodore Decatur was dispatched 
and brought the Dey to terms of peace on the 30th of 
June, 1815, after capturing an Algerian man of war and 
other vessels on his coast. 

In 1 81 6 the Republic of Argentine was formed as an 
independent nation. In 1818 Chili overthrew Spanish 
rule and established a republic. In 1819 Venezuela 
formed an independent republic. 

In 1820 the United States cancelled all debts against 
Spain and paid her $5,000,000 for Florida, and possession 
was formally taken on July i, 1821. By an act of con- 
gress Florida was created a territory of the United States 
March 30, 1822. 

In 1808 many changes took place in Portugal's Brazil, 
and in 1821 a hereditary empire was established. In 1821 
Nicaragua became an independent republic. On the 28th 
of Jul}^, 182 1, Peru unfurled the flag of an independent 



135 

republic. In 1821 Bolivia, through arms, established an 
independent republican government. 

Mexico, a nation whose true history has never been 
written, merits a short paragraph. In 1822 the United 
States congress acknowledged the independence of Mexico, 
and Iturbide, as her first president. Soon thereafter. 
President Iturbide, became ambitious and on the iSth of 
March, 1822, his partisans proclaimed him emperor of 
Mexico, under the title of Augustin I, which act brought 
him to trial and to be shot to death on July 10, 1822, as a 
traitor to his Mexico. 

In 1830, Ferdinand VII, of Spain, fitted out a large and 
costly fleet at Cuba to invade and recover his lost Mexico, 
but he met a resolute people, not unarmed Aztecs; and 
soon begged permission to depart under pledge never more 
to return. 

On Aug. 2, 1832, the wise and great Chief Black Hawk, 
who had bravely battled for his people and their homes 
was defeated at the bloody battle of the Bad Axe, by su- 
perior numbers, and the whites took possession of the 
blood-stained soil of Western Illinois. 

In 1835 Santa Anna imprisoned and issued a decree 
against the people of Texas, backed by his army, under 
General Cos. At that day the population of Texas did 
but number some 50,000, and would have been helpless 
before the well-drilled and not cowardly Mexicans had not 
a young sailor in New Orleans through the journals, on 
October i 2, 1835, called together several hundred of Ameri- 
can volunteers, through which act Uncle Sam in 1848 
garnered Texas, New Mexico and California, which changed 
the supposed destiny of a nation. The Lone Star flag of 
Texas independence was unfurled on San Jacinto's battle 
field the 21st of April, 1836. 

In December, 1835, the Indian Chief, Osceola (Talking 
Bird,) who was the Napoleon of his race, overpowered Gen- 
eral Thompson and scalped him because the general had 
placed him in irons when a prisoner. He had promised 



136 

the general to scalp him, whilst in irons, and he wiped out 
Major Dade's whole command save four. 

Great Britain first attacked the Boers at their Cape 
Town homes in i8j6^ when they were driven into the in- 
terior wilderness, which they converted into gardens and 
cattle farms. 

Now, in 1901, Great Britain desires their new homes. 
Between the 3'ears of 1830 and 1836 hundreds of Ger- 
mans were shipped through the port of New Orleans to 
Ohio, and sold to farmers and in the towns, principally in 
Cincinnati, to pay their passage, clothing and numerous 
expenses, with large profits for the shippers that sold them, 
and every class of workmen filled all stations at low wages 
that drove many of the residents Eastward and Westward. 
In 1842 a telling petition, the first for an armory on 
Rock Island, was drawn up by a sailor, addressed to the 
United States war department. The Island's relentless 
competitor was Fort Massac, in Illinois, on the Ohio river. 
At this period the population of Davenport was 796, trans- 
ient included. 

The first railroad tie ever laid in Iowa was laid on Fifth 
street, in Davenport, for the Mississippi and Missouri rail- 
road, on September /, iS^^j^ a sailor that gave the steam 
road its life and name was marshal of the eaj\ 

Some years previous to iS^y we had lived extravagantly, 
sent most of our money out of the country to purchase 
luxuries. Immigration during several years had been very 
large and filled every station of employment, and there was 
far more hands than work. A crash came in Buchanan's 
days and 6 per cent. United States bonds could not find a 
purchaser at 5 per cent. off. Every class of business 
dropped off, clerks and laborers were discharged, no use 
for them to sit around. The previous extravagance of 
the middle classes left them destitute and in want and 
misery. Soup houses were opened in the cities and char- 
ity bread distributed from wagons at the street corners, to 
thousands of pale, ragged, starving women and wan, totter- 



137 

ing, skeleton children. And when the supply was ex- 
hausted many departed without bread. A warning to the 
ignorant and thoughtless who are now neglecting their 
gray hair days of the future by gadding around or mak- 
ing uncalled for expenditures. History may repeat itself. 

The first shot of the great American rebellion of 1861 
was fired at the Star of the West, a transport vessel, when 
off Charleston Bay, on the 9th day of January, 1861. 

Jefferson Davis was inaugurated president of the Con- 
federate States of America on the i8th day of February, 
1861. The Civil War was shown to be positive on the 12th 
of April, 1861, by General Beauregard firing heavy guns 
from a battery on to Fort Sumpter. 

The home rebellion brought on many shocking occur- 
rences, some almost beyond belief, one will suffice. When 
the life of this nation called for a draft, there was a strong 
opposition to it, especially amongst the naturalized citizens 
and foreigners. A well laid plot to raid the drafting 
quarters and prohibit all drafting in New York was got up 
in the foreign quarter, originated and commanded by the 
Tweed, Croker and Herr Most class. On July 13, 1863, 
they in force attacked the drafting department, drove the 
officers out, destroyed all books and amidst the cry: "Hurrah 
for Jeff Davis, and down with the Abolitionists and the 
Negro," the buildings were fired and reduced to ashes. 
Negro men, women and children were brutally beaten, 
shot down, and some hung to lamp posts. The negro 
orphan asylum was sacked and burned, the orphans flee- 
ing into alleys and coal bins for shelter from desperadoes 
who patrolled the streets of New York to beat and murder 
the helpless. The militia regiments had been sent to Get- 
tysburg to check the Confederate invasion. 

In 1871 Chicago had a $3,200,000 fire. In 1875 con- 
gress appropriated $5,200,000 to improve the Mississippi's 
south pass, to make it navigable to sea-going ships, into 
the Gulf of Mexico, through the work of James R. Kads. 

In October, 1873, the steamer Virginia, Captain James 
Fry, with a crew 37 and 178 volunteers, was captured off 



Cuba and taken to Santiago and shot to death, and retri- 
bution came in 189S. 

The first rising of the people of Cuba against Spanish 
rule took place in 1826. The names of McKinley, Marti, 
Garcia, Alaceo and Gomez will go into history as the lib- 
erators of the Queen of the Antilles. 

On Jan. 26, 1898, the battleship Maine was sent as a 
friendly safeguard to Havana, Cuba. On the night of 
Feb. 15 she was blown up by an outside mine, and two 
officers and 264 of her crew met their death. 

On April 11, 1898, President McKinley asked congress 
to empower him to end hostilities in Cuba. On April 20, 
1898, the president sent his ultimatum to Spain, demand- 
ing that the Spanish troops should be withdrawn from 
Cuba before the noon hour of April 23. 

The first gun to announce to the world that the Ameri- 
can republic had made war on the monarchy of Old Spain 
sent its iron messengers across the bow of the Spanish 
merchantman, Buena Ventura, from the gun-deck of the 
Nashville, on April 22, 1898. The first gun to wake the 
echoes on Spain's territory was fired off the gun-deck of 
the Puritan that with its consort, the Cincinnati, bom- 
barded Matanzas and silenced Spain's fortress on April 
27, 1898. 

THE WORLD ASTONISHED. 

One of the most noted occurrences of the past century was 
the entire destruction or capture of Spain's Pacific fleet in 
Manila bay on May i, 1898, by the American Pacific squad- 
ron, Commodore George Dewey in command, which ended 
Spain's rule over the Philippine islands. On July 3, 1898, 
the Spanish fleet, under Commander Cervera, was captured 
or totally destroyed off Santiago bay. On July 17, Santi- 
ago surrendered, and the American flag waved over Spain's 
once Ciiba. On August 13 Dewey's fleet opened fire on 
the Manila forts with good effect and the land forces 
charged on the entrenched Spaniards and drove them into 
Manila, upon which General Jauderes surrendered the city, 



139 

and the z\nierican flag waved on the walls of Spain's 
Manila, and once powerful Spain was defeated in every 
land engagement and all her fleets of battle ships, on the 
North Atlantic and on the Pacific oceans, were destroyed 
or captured. And she surrendered her Philippines and 
West India islands to the American conquerors. Presi- 
dent McKinley authorized a general election to take place 
in Cuba on September 22, 1900, to elect delegates to meet 
in Havana, on the first Monday in November, 1900, to cre- 
ate and adopt a Republican Constitution as a nation; and 
on the day appointed, amid the cry of "Cuba Libre," the 
convention proceeded to perform its duty. 

AN UNCALLED FOR INVASION. 

The Chinese, for uncounted centuries, worshipped their 
own God and did not interfere with the outside world, but 
during the last decade many European powers have elbowed 
China and finally placed their foot on her domain. The 
white man labored and invited the Chinese to enter and 
make his home with him in the Kingdom come, but forbid 
and drove him from the white man's earth. 

Germany, with armed ships and armed troops, took pos- 
session of China's Kiao Chou, and soon extended their lines 
and pillaged and took possession of rural homes, and shot 
down many peaceful citizens, and their swords were drip- 
ping with human blood from point to hilt. 

Members of the German Reichstag, in session on the 
19th of November, 1900, admitted that the German invas- 
ion inflamed the Chinese nation and brought on the up- 
rising. And China's peace commissioner, Li Hung Chang, 
made a like statement to the world. This buccaneer in- 
vasion is declared by Sir Robert Hart to be the straw that 
broke the camel's back. Sir Robert has had personal ex- 
perience in and with the Chinese during 45 years, and he 
lately published this and his China experience, in the 
widel}^ known American Monthly Review of Reviews. 

For over 72 years has Old Sailor I known the Chinese, 
have dealt with them, and with great astonishment have I 



140 

heard the learned rehearse the traditions of centuries un- 
known to the white man. 

This German invasion flashed with lightning speed 
throughout the vast empire and aroused the patriotic popu- 
lace to frenzy, and the cry went forth, "Vengeance to the 
invaders." Then apathy seized the sympathizing judi- 
ciary and the easy-go-slow hereditary rulers, gazed aghast 
on the vast pools of congealed missionary blood. And now 
strutting Germans are clamoring for the heads of Chinese 
and for their warm, flowing, smoking blood on the scaffold, 
and the powers, so called, propose to forbid a peaceful na- 
tion to possess arms and to protect their homes from in- 
vaders. 

Bight nations combined, may for a century, hold the Chi- 
nese down, but mark, mark, in time their cry will be "Re- 
tribution in kind." They will also punish some of those 
eight nations, who desecrated the land of the great Confu- 
cious in 1900, by converting them into Chinamen, as the}^ 
did their ancient enemy the Tartars. When Germany 
made a landing on the Chinese shore at Kiao Chou, behind 
her guns of war, had the Queen Regent drawn her sword 
and drove the invaders into an angry sea, a just heaven 
would have applauded the act and no missionaries would 
have been cruelly slaughtered. Should Germany make a 
like landing from off the Atlantic or the Pacific oceans, on 
to Yankee land, we would drive them into the ocean or 
give them shallow graves on shore. 

It is the duty of some one to pass the occurrences of de- 
parted centuries on down through the corridors of time to 
a coming world. 

Respectfully yours, '^• 

A. C. Fulton'.' 
Davenport, Iowa, January i, 1901. 

On January 2, 1901, the Editor of the Republican wrote 
and 23ublished as follows: 



141 
'a remarkable article. 



Hon. A. C. J II I ton J^ rites of the Achievements oj the Past 

Tivo Cejituries. 

"On another page of the Republican this morning is an 
article from the able pen of Hon. A. C. Fulton, covering, 
in retrospection, the past two centuries. There is prob- 
ably not another man living today at the age of Mr. Ful- 
ton who can write so able an exhaustive an article. 
Though it treats of events of the past two centuries, it is 
really a history, a great part of it written from actual ob- 
servation, of the nineteenth century, through nine-tenths 
of which the writer has lived. The article is a challenge 
to nonagenarians." 



INTELLECT ALL POWERFUL. 

To build a staunch and seaworthy ship when the tim- 
ber, cordage, and iron of the world are placed before 3^ou 
is a task of skill and greatness. But when the task is to 
build a like ship from the wreckage of wood, iron and 
cordage, cast upon the seashore, then comes the tug of 
war. 

To the intelligent, active, and observing mind the his- 
tory of a people, even the obscure and barbarous, cannot 
be unfolded in vain; their origin, social relations, and gov- 
ernment teach a lesson in human nature. A life destitute 
of thought and useful action is as the furrowed path of a 
ship at sea; the water closes over it, leaving no trace of its 
once existence. 

A DISTANT PREDICTION. 

I have ever looked upon modern prophets with doubt, and 
I'litle did I think that I would ever enter that mystic sea. 
ery true, long before the revolution of 1776 its coming 
IS predicted, and long before the late Rebellion many 
far-seeing and thoughtful persons predicted that the insti- 
tution of slavery would result in disaster to, if not in the 
destruction of, this Union. 



142 

Office-farming and politics in the United States will be- 
come a profession. Bribery and corruption will exist in 
all political parties. They will abide in our legislative 
halls, in our county, city, and school offices, and even the 
judicial bench will part with its integrit}^ Merit and lion- • 
esty will be at a discount, whilst dishonesty and low cun- 
ning will command a premium. 

Many millions who will live and fatten on their country's 
ruin will be struggling for party supremacy and spoils. 
Selfishness will rule the day. 

The love of country will not exist, but will be forgotten 
in the strife for party and the spoils. No longer will there 
exist a nation of patriots striving for national honor and 
greatness, and even the tombs of the departed great will 
lose their sanctity. Truth will no longer possess value; 
mercy and honor will be unknown; ears will be deaf to the 
cry of shame; no word of praise or noble act will exist to 
mark upon a monument; wTong and destruction w^ll stalk 
abroad and no mercy will be shown to tears or prayers, 
and greed will disrobe the Goddess of Liberty. 

This is the exquisite synoptic of the events of the distant 
future. The quintessence of elegant miser}^; a forlorn situ- 
ation. 

To give all causes for the coming disaster would occupy 
too much space; but I will give the reader a faint idea of 
the future. This Republic will become the pauper's ref- 
uge and the office-holder's Paradise. There will be a Credit 
Mobilier in every State, count}^, and city. We will have 
twenty thousand New York Tweeds, and fifty thousand 
John Kellys; with greater and lesser kind, numbering 
many millions to devastate and blight the land. This vast 
body will act in perfect harmony, as they will be united by 
the cohesive power of public plunder. The press will be- 
come venal and espouse the cause of wrong. Right and 
justice will be but a mockery. An empty Presidential 
chair will be pra3^ed for. Then will an American Croni- 



143 

well rise to defy and overthrow imbecility, wrong, and 
robbery. Beyond this my vision does not, cannot penetrate. 
The past to many is a veiled obscurity, but man should 
not pass his life as does the brute that lives but to batten 
on the moor, and knows not of the changes of the moon. 
God and nature designed and bid man to advance and be- 
come something more. 

I must drop a vast number of adventures and occur- 
rences fearing that they would lack interest at this distant 
day, and some would consume large space. In one, I 
would have to say I had lashed myself to the stays of a 
mid-ocean, tempest-tossed ship whilst leviathan waves 
swept her deck from bow to stern, and phosphoric light 
flashed from the raging billows, and Heaven's thunder- 
bolts carried away the bowsprit and dismantled the yard- 
arms; I have faced the iron hail of artillery, and met a 
bayonet's charge without a shudder, through which I 
changed the supposed destiny of a nation. 

I would have to tell you that I had with hatless head 
and water-soaked clothing, clung to a frail raft of spars 
and witnessed many of my unfortunate companions swept 
into eternity, and my long and hard earned all swallowed 
by an angry sea. Then long days and nights of distress 
and horror to follow through hunger and thirst and the 
burning rays of the sun. Many things have changed in 
my day and since James Madison was President. Steam 
now weighs the anchor, mans the helm and sights the gun; 
but I must not consume space and time in further ressur- 
ecting occurrences from beneath the dust of ages, but 
must present but a mere preface of the past and of my day. 

UNWRITTEN TRAGEDY. 

I could name many sensational occurrences of the long 
past, in one of which sensational tragedy took place, occur- 
rences almost be3^ond belief, interspersed with comedy, in 
which I would have to couple two centuries and extend 
into two hemispheres and embrace three generations, and 



144 



y 



in which I would have to take a junior part in the tragic 
cast, during the earl}^ 3'ears of the past century. 

Sensation would follow sensation in a manner to bewilder 
the imagination, and it would eclipse any fiction ever 
penned by man, a plain recital would sink the grandest 
imagination of the renowned Dickens into insignificance. 
Angels of light and fiends of darkness would constantly 
appear and tears of joy would closely follow those of sorrow. 

It would embrace love and law, powder and diplomacy, 
revenge and untimely graves and statesmanship and di- 
plomacy, not of man, but of refined w^oman of historic 
note, and the deadly battle of the Amazons. 

Ambrose C. Fulton. 



